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BLESSED
THERE5E OF THE CHILD JE5U5
« I shall teach to souls
niv little wav ».
The ''Little Way'' of
Spiritual Qhildhood
<iAccording to the Life and Writings of
Blessed ThSrise de r Enfant Jksus
By the Rev. G, MARTIN^ Superior of the Diocesan
Missionaries of la Vendee, Translated at the Carmel of
Kilmacud^ Co. Dublin
" Here, then, is a way which, without giving to everyone
assurance of reaching the heights to which God has led
There se, is not only possible, but easy for all. As St
Augustine remarks, not everyone can preach and perform
great works, but who is there that cannot pray, humble
himself, and love ?" — Pius XI.
\
*
LONDON
BURCNis o^res & w^sh^bourns ltd.
28 ORCHARD STREET 8-10 PATERNOSTER ROW
W. I E.G. 4
AND . AT . MANCHESTER . BIRMINGHAM . AND . GLASGOW
1923
NIHIL OBSTAT :
F. Thomas Bergh, O.S.B.,
Censor Deputatus,
IMPRIMATUR :
Edm. Can. Surmont,
Vicarius Generalis.
Wkstmonasterii,
Die 17° Septembris, 1923.
Made and Printed in Great Britain
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
Had Blessed Therese de 1' Enfant Jesus remained on
earth she would have been fifty years of age this year,
1923, which sees decreed to her the honours of
Beatification.
Other young saints, it is true, have in as short a
time had the happiness of sanctifying themselves
and the glory of being beatified. But what is new,
we believe, in the history of canonizations is the un-
precedented movement to which her cause has given
rise throughout the whole world. From every
quarter of the universe, in fact, from uncivilized as
well as civilized countries, from all classes of society,
have come innumerable and most touching suppli-
cations begging the Holy See to raise to the honours
of the Altar the humble little Carmelite, who, on the
last evening of September, 1897, passed gently away
at the Monastery of Lisieux, without, however, hav-
ing done anything remarkable in the ordinary sense
of the word, and, at all events, ptactically unknown
to her contemporaries at the time of her death.
Such a movement, astonishing though it be, may,
apparently, be explained by the extraordinary abun-
dance of favours attributed to her intercession. But
these favours in their turn demand explanation. For
God does nothing without motive, and, above all,
FOREWORD
He is not lavish of His miracles without weighty
reasons.
In the designs of God the miracle is the letter of
recommendation that He gives to His envoys in order
to accredit them with men; it is the impress of the
Divine Seal upon their acts and the authentic proof
of their supernatural mission.
Had then Blessed Therese de 1' Enfant Jesus a
providential mission to fulfil ? Yes, and the shower
of roses that she had announced before her death,
and has never during twenty-five years ceased to let
fall upon the world, is but the Divine signature cer-
tifying her commission.
The meaning and purpose of this mission Sceur
Therese explained clearly a short time before her
death : / feely she said, thai my mission is soon to
begin, 7ny mission to make others love the good God
as I love Him . . . to give to souls my little way. I
will spend my heaven in doing good on earth. This
is not impossible, since the Angels from the very heart
of the Beatific Vision keep watch over us. Noy I
shall not be able to take any rest until the end of the
world. But when the Angel shall have said: Time is
no more! then I shall rest, shall be able to rejoice,
because the number of the elect will be complete.
And being asked what way she wished to teach
to souls, she replied : // is the path of spiritual child-
hood; it is the way of trust and of entire self -surrender.
I want to make known to them the means that have
vi
FOREWORD
SO perfectly succeeded for mey to tell them there is
one only thing to do here below: to cast before Jesus
the flowers of little sacrifices, to win Him by caresses!
That is how I have won Him, and that is why I shall
be so well received.^
It is this " little way " of spiritual childhood that
the present work proposes to make known. It is
addressed to all seriously Christian souls, but par-
ticularly to those whom Blessed Therese always
called '' little souls," designating by this word those
who, not being called to imitate the splendid achieve-
ments of the great Saints, must for that very reason
walk in the simplicity of the common way during
their whole life.
For the inestimable advantage of this little way
is to put perfection within reach of all who are of
good will ; to render accessible to whomsoever has the
sincere desire of attaining thereto, the highest sum-
mits of Divine Love.
Two principal motives have inspired the author to
write. In the first place, the wish to make known to
a great number of souls desirous of perfection, but
who often grow discouraged because they find the
way too obscure and too difficult, '* a new little way,
very easy and very short, by which to go to Heaven. "^
In the second place, a profound feeling of gratitude
towards the lovable saint who during her exile here
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
2 Ihid., chap. ix.
vii
FOREWORD
below prayed so much and suffered so much for the
sanctifi-cation of priests and in whom he loves to
recognize his Heavenly Benefactress. To him this
work is the ex-voto of his gratitude.
One fear, however, there was of a nature to hold
him back : the fear of misinterpreting the true mind
of Blessed Therese by badly expressing her thoughts.
But in the midst of the twofold family, human and
religious, where this celestial flower of virtue sprang
up and bloomed, those very persons who were the
best able, from her early childhood to her last hour,
to penetrate to her inmost soul have been well pleased
to give to the author of these pages the assurance,
most precious to him, that the true sentiments of
their holy little sister have been faithfully expressed.
It is only at their request that he decided to give
this study to the public.
His aim in composing it has not been to write a
complete treatise on spirituality, but only to point
out a particularly easy means of sanctification. And
so there is question merely of what directly relates to
the little way of childhood.
But to one who wishes to impress his mind very
deeply with the spirit of Blessed Therese de 1' Enfant
Jesus, it will be most useful to go back to the foun-
tain-head and read with care the *' Histoire d'une
Ame.*^
Finally, to complete our modest study, we strongly
recommend the work that the Carmel of Lisieux has
viii
FOREWORD
just published under the title : *' U Esprit de la Bien-
heureuse Therese de V Enfant Jesus ^ d^apres ses ecrits
et les temoins oculaires de sa Vie " (" The Spirit of
Blessed Therese de 1' Enfant Jesus, according to her
writings and the eyewitnesses of her life'*), and in
which pious hands have arranged with as much art as
love, and as so many precious stones in a rich casket,
all that could be gathered of the thoughts and senti-
ments of the dear Beata. From reading and medi-
tating on it, the greatest profit will be derived.
IX
CONTENTS
PAGB
Author's Foreword - - - - v
CHAPTER
I. How THE Way of Spiritual Childhood is
Founded on the Gospel, and in what it
Consists - - - - - - i
II. Littleness and Weakness - - - 9
III. Poverty - - - - - - 17
IV. Confidence in God - - - - 27
V. Love - - - - - - 47
1. the r6le and the importance of love
IN THE LITTLE WAY — ITS EXERCISE
VI. Love {continued) - • - - - 65
2. THE DIVINE LIFT — THE OBLATION TO THE
MERCIFUL LOVE OF THE GOOD GOD
VII. Holy Abandonment - - - - 87
VIII. Zeal- 99
IX Simplicity - - - - - - in
Appendix : Formula of Act of Oblation to
Merciful Love - - - - - 127
The '' Little Way '' of Spiritual
Childhood
CHAPTER I
How the Way of Spiritual Childhood is Founded
on the Gospel and in what it Consists
It is one of the most consoling truths of our holy
religion that Baptism, in regenerating us, has com-
municated to us the divine life and has made us the
children of God.
*' Behold," says St John, *'what manner of
charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we
should be called and should be the sons of God."^
This idea of divine sonship is the basis of our rela-
tions with God in the law of grace. The Gospel is
saturated with it from the beginning to the end. Our
Lord returns to it continually. When He speaks of
God, whether it be to His Apostles in private or
before the multitude. He gives Him no other name
than that of Father. Thus, in St Matthew, in the
Sermon on the Mount alone, the expression occurs
sixteen times.
Holy Church has not failed to notice this touching
fact, and at the Pater of the Mass she takes care to
point out that if she dares to use this name of Father
* I John iii i.
I B
THE ''LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
in speaking of God, it is because " God Himself has
given her this saving precept and taught her to do
it." This it is, she declares, which inspires her with
the courage to say, ''Our Father who art in
Heaven," etc.
It is then not justifiable to doubt it. God offers
Himself to us as the Father of the great Christian
family, and He wills that every one of us, not only
in prayer, but in every circumstance, shall look upon
himself as His child and behave as such.
I. — What Manner of Father God is for ns
But in practice, what idea must we form of this
Father in Heaven? Must we, whilst ascribing to
Him this beautiful name, refuse to attribute to Him
that which here below gives so many charms to a
father in the eyes of the child ? I mean to say : that
considerate tenderness, eager and vigilant, that deli-
cate care of all that concerns the welfare of the child,
and that paternal goodness, which, overflowing from
a very loving heart, manifests itself in all circum-
stances in look, word and gesture. And must we,
by reason of the respect that we owe Him, represent
to ourselves our Father in Heaven as a far-off being,
so far away that He is almost inaccessible, impassive
in the midst of His glory and so much above us by
His majesty that it is just enough if, through pity.
He permit that we give Him the name of " Father,"
to which name so much grandeur and such great
distance would render Him, as it were, unresponsive ?
Our Father in Heaven far away from us ! But
2
HOW THE SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD IS FOUNDED
how could that be, since it is in Him that we have
life and movement and being ?^
Reason suffices to tell us this. But faith goes fur-
ther, and teaches us that by the grace of Baptism the
Holy Trinity as such dwells in our souls as in His
Tabernacle — that God is in us as a loving father in
the house of His child. Jesus has said : ** If anyone
love Me My Father will love him, and We will come
to him and will make our abode with him."^
Being so near to us and always so present to our
inmost self, and being at the same time infinite Love
and infinite Goodness, how could our Heavenly
Father occupy Himself about us only indifferently
and negligently? The truth is that His paternal
Providence extends to the smallest details of our life,
has numbered the hairs of our head, and without His
consent not one shall fall.
There is more. All that to the eyes of a child con-
stitutes the charm of a father, before finding itself in
the heart of man, has its source in the heart of God,
and it is only because God has put in them a spark,
as it were, of His own love, a reflection of His
ineffable goodness, that fathers here below are so
good to their children. I say a spark, a reflection.
But what is a spark near a furnace — what is a pale
reflection in comparison with the sun — and what is
the heart of the best of creatures compared with the
Heart of the good God ?
Should someone object that, being God, our
Heavenly Father has not the same way that men
have of manifesting His tenderness, I reply that God
^ Acts xvii 28. 2 John xiv 23.
I
THE '* LITTLE WAY'' OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
became man also in order to be able to love us with
the heart of man; that neither death nor the Resur-
rection has taken away anything of His human good-
ness. He is to-day in Heaven and in the Host that
which He was in the days of His mortal life, always
most sweet, always most lovable and exceeding good,
always compassionate and infinitely desirous of the
happiness of His children on earth.
In the Man-God, neither did the Divinity lessen
the charms of the Sacred Humanity, nor did this
latter weaken the attributes of the Divinity. This is
why the idea we ought to form of our Father in
Heaven is not only as that of the most loving and
tender of earthly fathers, but as that of a father
incomparably better still, infinitely wise and infinitely
powerful, always ready, in the exercise of His Provi-
dence, to put His Omnipotence and His Wisdom at
the service of His Love for our benefit.
II, — What Manner of Children we ought to
be to God
See then what our Father in Heaven is in relation
to us. But we. His children, how ought we to behave
towards Him ?
For in one and the same family the children are
not all alike. There are big ones and little ones;
there are those who, according to their necessities or
their temperament, live far from or near to their
father, who have recourse to him frequently or rarely,
with a simplicity and a confidence more or less great.
Well, the good God wills that we behave in regard
4
HOW THE SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD IS FOUNDED
to Him not like the grown ones but like the very little
children : Sicut -parvuli.
The expression is our Lord's own, and He uses it
in the Gospel with a touching insistence :
** Amen I say to you, unless you be converted and
become as little children, you shall not enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven."^
** Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and
forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of
God/'2
" He that is the lesser amongst you all, he is the
greater."^
He has moreover on all occasions confirmed His
word by His behaviour, and no one, however little
he may have read the Gospels, is unaware how Jesus
loved to be surrounded by little children, and to
draw them to His Heart and bless them. Thus in
every way, by word and deed, has He shown His
predilection for little children, not only for those
who are so by nature, but also for those who have
become so, again, by grace. For He has likened
them the one to the other, mingling them in one and
the same love. He so greatly loved the little children
of Judaea, because to His eyes they symbolized
spiritual childhood ; and in turn, spiritual childhood
is so pleasing and so dear to Him because it appears
to Him wholly adorned with the charms of natural
childhood: "Suffer the little children to come to
Me, and forbid them not, for the Kingdom of Heaven
is for those who are like unto them."
Now, ''when a master sets forth a lesson under
^ Matt, xviii 3. 2 Mark x 14. ^ Luke ix 48.
5
OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
various forms, does he not wish by this multiplicity
of forms to signify that he holds it to be a lesson of
very special importance ? If he seeks in so many
ways to impress it on his disciples, it is because he
desires by one mode of expression or another to
ensure their more fully understanding it. From
this we must conclude that the Divine Master ex-
pressly desired that His disciples should see in
spiritual childhood a necessary condition in order to
obtain eternal life.'*^
There is then no doubt of it. To make oneself
as a very little child in the spiritual life is to respond
to the clearly intimated will, as well as to the dearest
desires of the Heart of our Lord.
III. — What it is to Enter into the Little Way of
Spiritual Childhood
Such is precisely the aim of the ** little way'* of
Blessed Therese. To enter into it is nothing else
than to adopt interiorly the manner of thinking and
acting of the little ones and to behave in all things
with regard to our Father in Heaven as they behave
with regard to their earthly father. It is to transfer
into the supernatural domain of the soul the charac-
teristics of childhood and to live under the eyes of
God as little children here below live under our eyes.
This simple definition enables us already by com-
parison to form a sufficiently exact idea of the '* little
way.*'
^ H.H. Benedict XV, on the occasion of the proclamation
of the heroicity of the virtues of Blessed Therese de 1' Enfant
J^sus.
6
HOW THE SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD IS FOUNDED
The characteristics of the child are, in the first
place, his littleness and his weakness, his poverty and
his simplicity. Of himself, what, in fact, is he?
What can he do ? What does he possess ? Nothing
or almost nothing. Therefore, he has no other
resource than the help that comes to him from his
beloved parents. Left to himself, everything is
wanting to him. With them, he is assured of want-
ing for nothing. From thence in his little heart
there comes a sense of absolute confidence which
impels him unconsciously to rely upon them with
simplicity for all that concerns him. He lives then
without preoccupation and without fear, wholly sur-
rendered to their care. This is abandonment.^
To the confidence of this cherished little being, the
parents respond with unceasing solicitude and con-
tinual vigilance to keep from him all that might be
hurtful, and to procure for him all that may be useful
or pleasant. But he is not ungrateful. He wishes,
therefore, to repay them in his own way. And his
way is very simple, yet at the same time so excellent
that it suffices to compensate his parents amply for
all their goodness to him. He is incapable of, he has
no knowledge of anything save to love. But he
loves in all sincerity, simply, ingenuously, with his
whole heart And one may say that all his occupa-
tion is to love.
To become the same — little, weak and poor before
the good God, to go to Him with our whole soul in
unbounded confidence, and to surrender ourselves to
' Him in entire abandonment, then finally and above
1 The " Little Way."
7
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
all to love Him, to lavish' on Him all the love of
which we are capable, not voluntarily to let pass any
opportunity of showing Him that we love Him : it is
thus that the children of the good God ought to live
here below. And it is to live thus that Blessed
Therese de 1' Enfant Jesus invites all little souls who
desire to walk after her in her *' little way."
All then that they have to do is to assume the
characteristics of childhood and live as children live.
The characteristics of childhood, as we have just
said, are littleness and weakness together with
poverty and simplicity.
As regards the life of the soul of a very little child,
it is wholly concentrated in confidence, love and
abandonment.
It is the study of these different virtues which
enables us to enter into the secret of the little way.
CHAPTER II
Littleness and Weakness
The first mark of a child is its being small.
According as it grows, the child ceases to be a child.
The first thing to do in order to enter into the
way of spiritual childhood is therefore to become
very, very little before the good God.
Now to be little is to be humble; to be very, very
little is to be perfectly humble. It is to see ourselves
such as we are of ourselves, such as we are without
the Divine Mercy — that is to say, a mere nothing and
no more. And not only to see, but to like to see our-
selves such as we have just said and to rejoice at this
sight.
For one may thoroughly know his wretchedness
and yet be exceeding proud — witness Satan. True
humility is not in the sight, but in the loved sight of
our lowliness. This is humility of heart, the only
true humility. It ought to be that of the little one.
I. — In the Way of Childhood how much we ought to
Prize and Desire Humility of Heart
If then, Christian soul, you wish to become in
God's sight a little child most dear to His Heart,
begin by making yourself as small as you can in
your own eyes. Seek to know yourself as you truly
are. In you there is good and bad. All the good is
from God; be faithful in thanking Him for it. All
9
THE
the bad is from you : profit by it so as to know and
despise yourself. Because this inability to do good,
these evil inclinations, this self-love, these failures,
these faults have their hold in the depths of your
being and result from your imperfection. Look all
that full in the face. Be not afraid to open your
eyes wide upon this great mass of miseries, and
above all let it not sadden you, but rejoice in pro-
portion as you discover in yourself new sources of
powerlessness and new abysses of weakness.
That is how Blessed Therese de T Enfant Jesus
acted : / do not grieve, she said, in seeing that I am
weakness itself. On the contrary , it is in that I
glory, and I expect each day to discover in myself
new imperfections. I acknowledge that these lights
concerning my nothingness do me more good than
lights concerning faith. ^
And feeling clearly that this attraction as well as
this light came to her from the good God, she thanked
Him as for one of the most precious graces that He
could grant to a soul. She even added : The
Almighty has done great things in me, and the
greatest is to have shown me my littleness and my
powerlessness for all good.
Therefore, all that best served to teach her her
nothingness was dear and precious to her. And as
nothing teaches us more efficaciously than the ex-
perience of our weakness duly acknowledged, it
came to pass that her imperfections, far from dis-
heartening her, rather caused her joy, especially from
the day when she came to understand that there are
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. ix.
lO
LITTLENESS AND WEAKNESS
faults (of frailty) which do not pain the good God.
What does it matter to me^ she would say, to fall each
moment? By that I feel my weakness y and therein
I find great profit. My God, You see what I can do
if You do not carry me in Your arms!
Here assuredly is one of the most incontestable
marks of humility. The truly humble soul is never
surprised at her falls. What astonishes her is not the
falling, but the not falling more frequently and more
heavily.
Does it astonish anyone to see a wee child fallen
on the ground ? It cannot even support itself stand-
ing upright, how then could it not make false steps ?
But ordinarily when little children fall they do not
much hurt themselves because they never fall from
any great height. So also little souls. Their
wounds are never very serious. One may say they
are healed as soon as wounded. Moreover, far from
being weakened by it, it even happens that they rise
up stronger than before, because one experience the
more has rendered them the more humble. Borrow-
ing the language of St Paul, Soeur Therese de
r Enfant Jesus loved to say : // is my weakness that
makes all my strength.^
Thus speak all souls who have understood and
appreciated humility of heart.
^ IIP lettre k la R.M. Agnes de Jesus.
II
THE "LITTLE WAY'* OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
II. — How Humility of Heart, which is the Secret of
Strength for the Very Little One, Introduces him
into the Little Way and Draws upon him the
Favours of Jesus
But there are very few souls who accept without
reserve this childlike littleness and who sincerely
rejoice when they are permitted to experience their
weakness and their helplessness.
The majority willingly enough recognize them-
selves as weak, but up to a certain point. And often,
too often, they wish also to preserve consciousness of
their own strength. When all goes in accordance
with their desires and they feel generous and well-
disposed, willingly they believe, like the Psalmist in
the midst of abundance, that nothing will cast them
down. But if, an hour later, distaste, weariness or
some particular difficulty arise, they imagine that
all is lost. And indeed one sees them totter and
fall — first into imperfections and then discourage-
ment.
These souls have not understood true humility.
They have not understood that what constitutes the
strength of the wee child is its very weakness; that
the weaker and the more helpless it is of itself the
more eagerly do we hasten to its aid. To a child
more grown we do not dream of giving the same
care nor lavishing the same attention as on one just
born.
In like manner does the good God incline with more
love to the soul that He sees to be the least and
weakest. Hear what He says in the Book of
12
LITTLENESS AND WEAKNESS
Proverbs : " Whosoever is a little one, let him come
unto Me." But what is He going to do to this
little one? Why does He invite him to draw near?
Our Beata has already sought to learn, and it is by
interrogating the throbbings of love of the adorable
Heart of Him who is Father before all fathers and
above all fathers, that she has found the response
and discovered the secret of her little way: " As a
mother caresses her child, so will I comfort thee,"
saith the Lord. " I will carry thee upon My bosom
and I will cradle thee upon My knees. "^
Having cited this text she adds : A A, never came
words more sweety more tender ^ to gladden my soul.
She came, in fact, to find in them the object of her
most ardent desires. She was seeking a very direct
little way of going to God; better than that, feeling
that she was too little to climb the rugged steps of
perfection^ she wanted to find a lift to raise her up
even unto Jesus. And now the words of Eternal
Wisdom have suddenly discovered it to her : Thine
Arms, Jesus, are the lift which must raise me up
even unto Heaven. For that I need not grow greater,
on the contrary it is necessary that I remain little,
that I tend to littleness ever more and more.^
These last words should be carefully noted and
very great attention be given to them. For they
contain one of the most important secrets of the life
of spiritual childhood : / need not grow, on the con-
trary it is necessary that I remain little, that I tend to
littleness ever more and more. And here we must
1 Cf. Isa. Ixvi 13.
2 " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. ix.
13
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
notice an essential difference between the natural life
and the spiritual life. In the first, one cannot always
remain little. There is a necessary growth which
sooner or later obliges all to leave childhood behind.
In the second, on the contrary, the older we grow
and the further we advance the more necessary is it
that we become little. Here the steps forward are
marked principally by the progress in humility — -
that is to say, the perception clearer and clearer, and
ever more dear, of our nothingness ; so that the more
the soul loves to see herself weak and miserable the
more fit is she for the operations of consuming and
transforming Love.
The more does Jesus love her : What pleases Jesus
in my little soul is to see me love my littleness and my
poverty^ it is seeing the blind trust that I have in
His mercy. ^
The more does Jesus enlighten her : Because I was
little and weaky Jesus stooped down to me and ten-
derly instructed me in the secrets of His love.^
The more confidence ought she to have in the all-
powerful action of Jesus in her : It was Jesus who did
all in me^ and I — / did nothing but be little and weak.
We shall see by what follows that this interior work
of Jesus in the soul does not dispense her from per-
sonal effort. On the contrary, having become a
little child in regard to the good God, she must seek
every opportunity of pleasing her Father in Heaven
by her generosity. But we speak here of the funda-
mental disposition of the life of childhood which
1 VP lettre a Sr. Marie du S. Coeur.
2 " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. v.
14
LITTLENESS AND WEAKNESS
consists, before all, in a state of littleness and weak-
ness recognized, sought after, loved. And that is
why we insist so much on this point.
Let us also observe that this state is always pos-
sible at any age and in all positions in life. For, as
Blessed Therese asserted, it is quite possible to remain
little even in filling the most important offices, and
even on attaining extreme old age. As for me, she
said, if I lived eighty years, having filled all the
offices, I should, I feel certain, be quite as little at the
time of my death as I am to-day.
This remark was not without profit. It proves
that the little way is suited to all the stages of life
as well as to all conditions. It is never too late to
enter it. It is never time to leave it.
15
CHAPTER III
Poverty
The second characteristic mark of the life of child-
hood is Poverty. In the eyes of Blessed Therese de
r Enfant Jesus, spiritual poverty was of very great
importance; accordingly she assigned to it a place of
quite first rank in the heart of the little ones.
Nature, moreover, will so have it. Even amongst
the rich, the child possesses nothing of his own.
Everything belongs to his parents, who themselves
give him what is necessary according to his needs.
After his example, the soul who enters into the way
of spiritual childhood must look upon herself as
possessing nothing of her own.
I. — The Spirit of Poverty Shelters the Soul from Want
by Accustoming her to look to the Good God for
All Things
This, in the opinion of Blessed Therese, was the
surest means of never wanting for anything. She
drew her conclusions from what takes place amongst
the poor. Even in the homes of the poor, she ex-
plained, they give to the little child what is necessary
for him. But when he has grown up his father will
maintain him no longer, and says to him: Now work,
you can provide for yourself. Well, it was to escape
ever hearing that, she added, that I have never
wished to grow up, feeling myself incapable of earn-
ing my living, the eternal life of Heaven. For I
17 C
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
have never been able to do anything of myself alone.
I have then always remained little, having no other
occupation than that of gathering the flowers of love
and 'sacrifice and offering them to the good God for
His pleasure.'^
One could not reason better, nor more lovingly,
nor more wisely. Just now the child of Providence
was saying to her Father in Heaven: '* I can do
nothing ; be Thou my strength ! ' ' Now she adds : "I
have nothing ; be Thou my wealth !" After that, how
could a father so good and so rich as is the good
God leave her in want, while earthly fathers, so far
behind His divine goodness, take so much pleasure
in granting the least desires of their little children ?
In like manner, the soul who realizes her poverty,
who sees herself to be without virtue and without
courage, incapable of any good, powerless in the face
of the least sacrifice or of the least temptation, and
who sincerely recognizes it, has but to turn trustfully
to Him whose goodness supplies for all. A cry from
her heart, a word, a gesture, a look will suffice, the
simplest prayer being always best. And the Father
who from the heights of Heaven looks lovingly on
all that is little and humble will come to the help of
His child.
From this it follows that the child's surest means
of lacking nothing is to possess nothing and to expect
all from the good God.
^ " Conseils et Souvenirs."
i8
POVERTY
II. — But we must await Everything from Day to Day
and even from Moment to Moment
A father only gives to his child what is necessary
or useful for him at the moment. One does not
usually present an entire big loaf of bread to a wee
child, but only as much of it as is needful to appease
his hunger. Again, one does not put him in pos-
session of a whole wardrobe of linen. One gives
him what is necessary day by day. And it is thus
that the good God acts in regard to His little child.
Unfortunately there are few souls who resign them-
selves to receiving only little by little and from
moment to moment the assistance of their Father in
Heaven. They would prefer to be enriched all at
once. That is because we so love to see ourselves
with provision for the future. This is true of worldly
people from the temporal point of view, and it is
true of a multitude of souls from the spiritual point
of view. *'I do wish,*' they say, "to count upon
God, but would that I were able also to count upon
myself. Would that I could ascertain my progress,
render account to myself of the good that I do; in
short, see myself in possession of a real spiritual for-
tune that I should be able to handle as one handles
fine clear-ringing crowns. What security that would
give me for the future ! * '
But no, that is false reckoning. There is no
security that can preserve from one single sin, nor
give strength to accomplish the very lightest sacri-
fice but the grace of God alone. And God does not
give His grace in advance. Is not this grace called
19
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
actual grace, to denote that it is given only at the
moment of need ? And it is necessary that the gift
of it be renewed at every moment.
Many a time have 1 noticed, wrote Blessed Therese,
that Jesus will not give me provision for the future.
He sustains me from moment to moment with nourish-
ment that is ever new. I find it in me without know-
ing how it is there. I believe quite simply that it is
Jesus Himself, hidden in the depths of my poor little
heart, who acts in me in a mysterious manner, and
inspires me with all He wills me to do at the moment.^
Again, she said : Let us deem ourselves of the
number of quite little souls whom the good God must
every moment sustain.
Now, God wills that we should ask this grace of
Him just as He gives it day by day, the better to
keep us in dependence upon Him and to oblige us to
have recourse to Him continually. It is not the
bread of the whole year, but the bread of each day
that He has taught us to ask for : " Give us this day
our daily bread.'*
Thus thought and thus prayed the ''little
Therese '* :
What matters it to me, Lord, if the future sombre be —
To pray Thee for the morrow, ah, no, not there my way.
Keep Thou my heart pure, let Thy shadow cover me
Only for this one day. ^
In this manner, the soul can practise spiritual
poverty though all the while loaded with graces and,
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. viii.
2 " Mon chant d'aujourd'hui."
20
POVERTY
as it were, bowed down under the weight of the riches
of Heaven. And the avowal that she humbly makes
before God of her poverty, in a measure forces her
good Father in Heaven to open to her yet more fully
His Divine treasures.
III. — It is Necessary that the Gifts of God be Received
and Kept without the Spirit of Ownership
Nevertheless, these treasures entrusted to the hands
of the child remain always the treasures of the good
God, and the good God who is master of them
retains, it is evident, the right to take them back.
This is true of supernatural gifts of grace and
of virtues; it is true also of natural gifts, such
as health, intellect, situations, employments, etc.
Therefore the truly poor in spirit remains perfectly
detached.
Now, wrote the Blessed Therese towards the end
of her life, / have received the grace to be no more
attached to the goods of mind and heart than to
those of the earth.^
In the Old Testament, Job had given an admirable
example of this perfect detachment, and his words
are well known : ' * The Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away" (he was speaking of his goods, of his
children, of his health), ** blessed be the name of the
Lord." 2
Not less, and perhaps even more beautiful still, is
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. x.
* Job i 21.
21
THE ''little way*' OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
the prayer of the ' * little Therese ' ' to her Mother in
Heaven :
All that He hath given me may Jesus take again.
O tell Him never must He feel in aught constrained with
me. . . .
^^ Job accepted with resignation what the Divine Will
f'liad ordained. Blessed ''little Therese'* anticipates
this holy Will; no|; only will she let herself be
despoiled, but she does not wish that fesus should
feel any hesitation about doing it; she wishes that
He should consult only His Divine good pleasure.
And see here how already in the practice of poverty
all the delicacy of her childlike heart manifests itself.
Little souls y you who also aspire to the perfection
of spiritual childhood ; following the example of your
lovable model, let your Father in Heaven by turns
enrich you or seem to despoil you. Cling to nothing
as much as to Him. May His holy Will be dearer
to you than all His gifts. Thus will you be truly
poor in spirit, poor in appearance, but in reality rich.
Thus you will imitate the tiny child who regards his
mother with the same love whether she puts on or
takes off his holiday frock. For that which he loves
is not what is given him or taken from him, but the
hand that gives, or takes away. He feels that he is
loved. He feels that all is for his good. And that
suffices.
IV. — We must remain Poor for Life
Blessed "little Therese" has already told us, in
speaking of humility, that one can quite well remain
little even on attaining extreme old age.
22
POVERTY
On the subject of poverty she has written the same
thing : As for me, if I live to be eighty, I shall be
always just as poor. I know not how to save up: all
I have I spend immediately to purchase souls. ^
But acting thus, one may question what will remain
to the soul at the close of life wherewith to purchase
Heaven.
To this objection our Beata replies with her naive
and childlike confidence : / shall have no zvorks of
mine. Well, the good God will reward me accord-
ing to His own works.
Howsoever strange it may appear to one who has
not entered into this way of loving confidence in God,
this is why she desired to appear before the good God
zvith hands empty, having instead of all riches
nothing but the humble acceptance of her destitution.
These words, in truth, call for some explanation.
When Blessed Therese tells us that she will have
no personal works to present to the good God at her
last hour, and that she wishes to appear before Him
with empty hands, she does not intend to teach the
uselessness of good works. To interpret her thus
would be completely to distort her thought. Her
piety, as we shall see in the course of this study,
was most active. She would not have been willing
to lose even a very trifling opportunity of practising
virtue. But what she did was not done in order to
store up merit in view of eternity; it was solely for
the good pleasure of Jesus, to whom she gave up all
her good works as soon as performed in order to
purchase souls for Him.
^ " Conseils et Souvenirs."
23
THE ''LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
She called that : *' to play '* at the bank of Love.
This, then, was not indolence or carelessness on her
part, but great wisdom. For when one knows the
Heart of the good God one cannot doubt about the
excellence of the investment. Did not St Teresa of
Avila say that if one gives Him a maravedi He
immediately returns a hundred ducats ?
It was not, however, this hope of profit that guided
our Beata. She had too much of disinterestedness
to be inspired by that. But in her filial confidence
she believed that at her last hour Jesus, seeing her
come to Him with empty hands, after having ex-
pended everything for souls, would be Himself her
holiness, and clothing her with His own merits
would render her holy for eternity. She hoped thus
to receive the eternal possession of God, not as the
recompense of her own works, but from the sole love
of Jesus. And as regards throne and crown, she
wanted none but the good God alone.
That being so, she had no need to be preoccupied
about amassing riches. Her treasure was already in
the hands of her Father in Heaven. To obtain it
one day, it would suffice for her to imitate little
children who, assured of the paternal inheritance,
are content with loving their fond father and fully
rely upon him for the care of their future.
So poverty and humility go together and walk side
by side the whole length of the little way. The per-
fection that one practises therein does not consist in
growing greater but in tending ever more and more
to littleness, nor in enriching oneself but in remain-
ing always poor. And we must accept the being
24
POVERTY
poor and weak; but better still, we must love to be
so until death.
V. — Consequences of the Preceding in Relation to the
Forgetting of Creatures and of Self
A poor child does not hold an important place in
the world. Outside his parents, very few trouble
themselves about him or notice him.
A little soul walking along in the little way must
also accept with joy the neglect of fellow-creatures.
May all creatures be nothing to me, and I nothing
to theniy had the Beata exclaimed on the day of her
religious Profession. . . . May none concern them-
selves about me; may I be forgotten, trodden under
foot as a little grain of sand.^
She, then, placed her happiness and her glory in
being forgotten.
She went further, she made herself so little in her
own eyes that she came to lose sight of herself. /
wish to be forgotten, she had said, not by fellow-
creatures only, but also by self, so as no longer to
have any desire exce-pt to love the good God.
Thus did she bring herself to nothing. In this
she was the faithful imitator of Him who came upon
earth to be annihilated. And therein consists the
perfection of humility for the very little ones : to
become less than nothing, so little that we come to
lose sight of self, to forget self always in order to
have but one thought in the mind, one desire in the
heart — the love of the good God.
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. viii.
25
THE "little way" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
No one can walk at his ease if he be encumbered
with baggage, but he who has got rid of everything
runs easily. This is why humility and poverty so
well fit a soul to walk after Jesus, who left all things,
keeping only His Cross in order to ascend Calvary.
And for this reason Blessed Therese could sing :
To the Heart Divine with tend'rest love o'er/lowing,
.All have I given that I had to give . . .
Swiftly I run, none other riches knowing,
Only on love to live.
26
CHAPTER IV
Confidence in God
Small and weak, destitute of all things, the child,
as we have seen, can do nothing of himself. But if
the tender love of a father is there to supply f©r it,
this very helplessness is going to become for him a
source of strength. In what manner one can guess.
The wee child would like to walk but finds it im-
possible; his feet, being too frail, refuse to support
him. Or again some danger threatens him and he
seeks to defend himself. But what can his feeble
arm do ? Happily his father is there. A quick look
towards this father and the father has understood,
has stooped down and lifted up his child. He clasps
him in his arms and holds him to his heart. With
what joy he carries him and with what love he pro-
tects him ! And behold the little one become for the
time being strong with all the strength of his father.
Happy privilege of childhood which owes to its
helplessness the being so quickly and so effectually
rescued. Irresistible the power of a simple look from
a child which no father's heart here below can with-
stand. How could the good God withstand it. He
who has created all hearts of fathers on the model of
His own ?
It is this look of loving confidence that He, too,
awaits from His little child in order to come to his
aid. True, God is so good that often, without being
called, He hastens to help us. However, He comes
27
THE
with still more eagerness to him who calls Him the
more frequently, usually proportioning His tender-
ness to the confidence that He discerns in the sup-
plicant look. Because for the soul, to look towards
God, to have confidence or to ask, is but one and
the same thing. And has not Jesus said : "If you
ask the Father anything in my name He will give
it you ' * ? It is in the same sense that Blessed
Th6rese de T Enfant Jesus also said : We obtain from
the good God quite as much as we hope for.
It is of supreme import to the soul who walks in
the little way of childhood to encourage in herself an
immense confidence in God. This for her, from the
point of view of her perfection, is an essential ques-
tion. For, as we have said, in becoming a little
child she obliges herself to expect everything from
the good God.
Therefore it is necessary that, from the outset, she
establish herself solidly in confidence, and that by
a very frequent exercise of this virtue she set herself
to augment it from day to day. It is also necessary
that she beg for this grace. Because a great con-
fidence like that of Blessed Ther^se is a signal gift
from God and the effect of His Divine liberality.
However, if we cannot acquire it by personal industry,
we can at least dispose ourselves for it by a great
fidelity to grace and by the ardour of our desires.
Above all, it is necessary to give to our confidence
solid foundations. Let us begin by establishing
them.
28
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
I. — Foundations of Confidence
It is not in ourselves that we must seek them, but
in God alone, in His Love, in His Mercy, and even
in His Divine Justice.
Indeed, the first result of the humility of which we
have previously spoken must surely be to rid us of
all confidence in self. Once entered into this way
of genuine littleness and spiritual poverty the soul
no longer sees in herself anything of her own, except
her nothingness, her misery, and her frailty. How
then, on so clear and penetrating a view of the nothing
that she is, could she place the least confidence in
self? And there we see the signal grace and inesti-
mable advantage that the life of childhood confers.
It forces the soul to go out of herself, to look out-
side self in order to seek the assistance she is in
need of. But to whom shall she go if not to her
Heavenly Father ? To whom shall she look if not to
the infinitely good and merciful God, to Him who
is all love ?
First Foundation oj Confidence:
LOVE OF THE GOOD GOD FOR US.
For such is the beautiful definition that St John
has given us of God, having himself drawn it from
the Heart of Jesus on the evening of the Last Supper :
''God is Charity.'' Now, all God is, that He is
mfinitely. Therefore He is infinite Charity. Then
God loves me, and with a love so great that it goes
beyond all that one can say of it. He loves me, and
there is in His love all that is the most capable of
29
THE ** LITTLE WAY '' OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
increasing my confidence : a tenderness, a goodness,
a generosity, a desire to do me good, which are
immense.
God loves me. And how should I not love Him
since I am the work of His hands ? I am more, and
better still, for I am His child. He has communi-
cated to me His life in communicating to me His
nature. He is my Father, my good Father, ever
inclining towards me to watch and to provide for all
my needs. But why do I say inclining towards me
when He resides in me, in the innermost recesses of
my being ? There, more continually and with more
solicitude than I could do it, He thinks of me and
occupies himself about me. His love which is un-
ceasing is my sweet Providence. And at the service
of this ever watchful Providence there is Omnipo-
tence, always ready to intervene in order to second
the designs of Love.
God loves me; and to prevent my doubting it. He
has everywhere written His love for me, in every
place and upon everything ; in the star that shines to
charm me, in the ray of sunshine that warms and
gives me light, in the azure of the sky and in the
passing cloud, in the fragrance of the flower, and
in every morsel of bread that I eat, in my vesture,
and on all the stones of my dwelling-place, every-
where. He has written it plainer still with the tears,
with the sweat, with the blood, at Bethlehem, at
Nazareth, at Golgotha. And He Himself has re-
mained, in person, by the most touching and incon-
ceivable of marvels, in all the Tabernacles of the
world, in order to repeat to me unceasingly, day and
30
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
night, far and near, everywhere : ** I love thee. Only
see how I love thee."
It was at sight of all these marvels of love that
Blessed Ther^se cried out : Jesus, suffer me to tell
Thee that Thy love reaches even unto jolly. . . .
What wilt Thou, in face of this folly, but that my
heart dart u-pwards to Thee . . . how can my con-
fidence have any bounds?
And since all this love is for us, too, why should
we ourselves set bounds to our confidence? Let us
then enlarge to the full our hearts. Let us not allow
fear to straiten them. And let us repeat boldly with
Blessed Therese : 'Never can we have too much con-
fidence in the good God — so good!
Second Foundation of Confidence:
INFINITE MERCY.
Yes, it is true, someone will say, the goodness of
God is immense, and one can understand saints hav-
ing boundless confidence in Him because they are
saints. But I who am so destitute of virtues and
merits, so full of imperfections, I shall never be able
to share their confidence; I am too miserable.
Too miserable ! But do you then forget that the
love of the good God for us is, above all, a merciful
love, and that mercy is nothing else than that touch-
ing and mysterious attraction which, filling a heart
with pity at the sight of misery, impels it to help,
as it inclines towards all that is weakness to raise
up again or to relieve, to heal a wound, to forgive
an injury? A compassionate heart goes out instinc-
tively to misery — and with the more eagerness and
31
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
love the greater the misery. For just as the heart of
the ambitious never beats higher than when it sees
new honours to be won, so, too, with the compas-
sionate heart when it sees before it the deepest dis-
tress to relieve.
Well, such is the heart of the good God, and such
does it appear to us in the Gospels. One ought to
take this beautiful book and read it over slowly page
by page. Oh what touching things we learn there
of the merciful love of the Heart of Jesus ! We see
there how tenderly He was disposed towards every
form of misery, towards poverty and sickness, weak-
ness and suffering, towards death itself, and even
towards sin — sin above all, which is the worst of all
misfortunes. We see that the more lamentable the
misery the more touching always was the mercy.
Blessed Therese understood this well; she who
night and day carried the Gospels upon her heart,
and never ceased to ponder them. A special grace
had besides attracted her to them from her childhood.
For very, very early she had a special knowledge of
the Divine Mercy, and one may say that this was
the great light of her life and the grace proper to her
mission. No one, it would seem, was ever more
attracted than she was to this infinite Mercy ; no one
penetrated further into its ineffable secrets ; no one
better understood the immensity of the helps that
human weakness can draw from it.
The Mercy of God was the illumining Sun of her
soul, that which to her eyes threw light upon all the
mystery of God in His relations with man. It was
by its light and in this ineffable mirror that she con-
32
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
templated the other Divine attributes^ and seen by
this light all appeared to her radiant with love. From
thence came the inspiring- thought of her spirituality.
From thence came forth all * ' her little doctrine. ' ' We
know in what that consists :
Confronting the Divine Giant of Love and Mercy,
she exposes the immense weakness and utter helpless-
ness of a very little child, and in a transport of
irresistible confidence, she throws him into the arms
of Mercy in order through Mercy to surrender him
wholly to all the Love, to all the Goodness, to all the
Wisdom, to all the Power of God.
We can judge from that of the role of Divine Mercy
in the "little way," and of the idea which it is
fitting we should form of it and of the confidence we
must place in it.
The life of a '' little soul " in Heaven and on earth
should be understood as an unceasing hymn of love
to the praise of Mercy. She more than any other is
made to sing eternally the mercies of the Lord.
Third Foundation of Confidence:
THE DIVINE JUSTICE.
But, someone will again object, in God there are
other attributes besides Mercy, and some of them very
formidable. There is Justice.
The objection would certainly be grave if justice
tended solely to severity. But it falls of itself when
we consider that the property of justice is to render
to each one that which is his due, and consequently
to reward the good as well as to punish the evil.
Moreover, justice to be equitable must take into
33 D
THE ** LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
account good intentions and also circumstances which
lessen the responsibility no less than those which
increase it. Now there is in man so much of natural
weakness, and original sin has added thereto so much
of corruption, that before chastising him for his mis-
deeds, God, through a sentiment of justice, begins
always by considering his profound misery. But
He cannot look upon that without being moved to
pity, and so it comes about that His Justice itself
excites His Mercy. This it is which explains the
very different manner in which He dealt with sin in
the Angels and in man, and how the same justice
which in presence of the sin of the Angels imme-
diately delved out the abysses of hell, in face of the
sin of Adam began by opening abysses of love, in
the Redemption. And so it is because He is just that
the good God is compassionate and full of gentleness ^
slow to punish and abounding in mercy. For He
knoweth our frailty; He remembereth that we are but
dust.^
Besides, since in redeeming us Jesus Christ has
made grace to superabound where sin hath abounded,
we have through Him an incontestable right to the
Divine pity. Since He has paid, and far more than
paid all our debts, it is no longer through mercy
alone, but through justice that the good God grants
us pardon.
Such were the habitual thoughts of our Beata.
Therefore, the justice of God no less than His other
attributes appeared to her all radiant with love.
She hoped no less from it than from His Mercy, and
* VP lettre k des Missionaires.
34
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
SO it is, that this justice which frightens so many
souls was for her a subject of joy and confidence.
In God she saw above all a father. And from the
supremely equitable justice of a father infinitely
good, what may a child well expect who no doubt
sometimes forgets himself, but who nevertheless tries
to love as much as he can and who feels that he is
tenderly and deeply loved ? Severity or tenderness ?
There is no room for doubt. If this father were ever
so little unjust — ah, then the child would have reason
to fear. From a father perfectly just he may on the
contrary hope all things. And when this father is
God, the justice being infinite, confidence, too, ought
to be without measure.
Such are the true sources of supernatural hope.
How, after that, could we restrict our confidence to
the measure of merely human confidence? How
could we set bounds to it ?
II.— Practical Consequences
From the preceding principles spring several prac-
tical truths, which, reduced to axioms by our Beata,
must become familiar to every soul who undertakes
to follow her in the little way. Here are a few of them :
We have never too much confidence in the good
God — so good.^
We obtain from the good God quite as much as we
hope for.
What offends fesus, what wounds Him to the
Hearty is want of confidence. "^
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
2 P^ lettre a Marie Guerin.
35
// is confidence, and confidence alone, that must
lead us to Love.^
Let us dwell a little on these thoughts. This will
not be to retard our progress. Our soul, on the con-
trary, will there find strong wings to enable her to
fly even unto God.
We have never too much confidence in the good
God — so good.
The reason is that God is infinite, infinite in riches,
in greatness, in power, as in love. He can give, give
again, give always and ever liberally, and do so for
centuries ; and after that there will remain to Him no
less to give; for though He should pour down tor-
rents of His gifts and graces. He loses not the smallest
particle of His infinite perfections. He remains after-
wards what He was before : infinite. It is His glory
to be able to give without measure, and it is His joy
to give in reality all that His creatures can or will
receive of His gifts. The more they ask Him the
more He loves to give. But if, in one of these
creatures regenerated by Baptism, the good God sees
a Christian, His child, if in this Christian He sees a
soul who lays claim to nothing on this earth other
than to please Him and to love Him, what limits will
He put to His generosity ?
The Heart of the good Master asks but to be
opened to let the flood of His benefits flow out.
And what opens it is confidence, above all, the
simple and daring confidence of a child.
It is not with God as with us. We very quickly
weary of giving. He never does. We soon con-
* VI® lettre k Sr. Marie du Sacre-Coeur.
36
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
sider importunate whoever pursues us with demands.
The more we ask of the good God, the better is He
pleased.
There are graces too that we scarcely dare ask
for, because to us they appear too great. But that
which in relation to us is the greatest is always very
small in relation to God. So it greatly honours Him
to measure our petitions by His greatness instead of
by our nothingness, and in all our prayers to let the
inspiring thought be of what He is, rather, by far,
than of what we ourselves are.
That is what Blessed Therese did. . . . She
thought : The good God never gives desires which
cannot be realized. What he inspires me to ask of
Him is then that which He wills to give me. Again,
she said to herself that little children have a right
to be daring with their beloved parents. My
excuse, she wrote in speaking of a prayer she had
made and which might appear rash, my excuse is
my title of '' child, *^ Children do not reflect on the
import of their words. Nevertheless, if their fathers
or mothers ascend the throne and are possessed of
immense treasures, they do not hesitate about grati-
fying the desires of the little ones whom they cherish
more than themselves. To give them pleasure they
squander money, they descend even to weakness.
Animated by these sentiments, she fears not to ask
for herself the perfection of pure love; she forms
besides immense desires, vast as the universe, of
which the realization will extend down the ages
even to Eternity. And having formed them, she
dares to cry out in the simplicity of her confidence
37
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
that the Lord will work wonders for her which will
infinitely surpass her immense desires. Events have
justified her confidence. Her mission confirmed by
so many prodigies bears testimony to it. And is
not this the most convincing proof of the truth of
her words : We have never too much confidence in
the good God — so good?
In truth, a remark here forces itself upon us, and
these words call for an explanation. For one can sin
by excess of confidence or presumption; and he
would sin by presumption who, while wishing to
continue to live in sin or in tepidity, should con-
sider himself nevertheless as assured of salvation, or
of attaining to perfection, on condition of supplying
for his bad will by the excess of his confidence. To
act so would be to fall into a very grave practical
heresy. And that is certainly not what we wish to say.
On the contrary, we suppose a well-grounded good
will and one of those souls — of whom there are many
— who, still far from perfection, unite to sincere desires
of being all for God many imperfections and failures.
It happens to them to fail in their resolutions and
to yield to their faults; they fall; but deep down,
their will to sanctify themselves perseveres, and
they are always in the disposition to work at it
seriously. It is to them we say that they may ^\n^
free scope to their confidence.
We even say that they should not content them-
selves with feeble desires, but proportion these to
their needs, which are extreme, and to the Divine
liberality which is infinite.
If we obtain so little from the good God, it is
38
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
because we ask too little. Our Lord affectionately
reproached His Disciples with that: '' Hitherto you
have not asked anything in My name. Ask, and
you shall receive, that your joy may be full. If you
ask the Father anything in My name, He will give
it you.*'
But we must ask. To ask, we must desire; we
must hope, have confidence that we shall obtain.
It is our lack of confidence which hinders the Heart
of the good God from freely expanding, just as
that of the inhabitants of Nazareth in like manner
hindered Jesus from pouring out upon them His
prodigies of love and His graces as He would have
desired.
All the miracles of the Gospels are due to the con-
fidence of the suppliants. Where it abounded, they
multiplied ; when it declined, they diminished ; when
it vanished, they too disappeared.
Therefore, when Blessed ''little Therese " tells
us that we obtain from the good God quite as much
as we hope for, this is no novelty that she teaches.
Her words are the very echo of the Gospel, and of
twenty centuries of faith.
We obtain from the good God quite as much as we
hope for. . . . Was not Jesus also continually re-
peating : " Have faith, have confidence in God. . . .
All is possible to him that believeth ... he that
believeth in Me, the works that I do he also shall do,
and greater than these shall he do."
It is not surprising after all this that our Beata
should be able to say : What offends Jesus, what
wounds Him to the Heart, is want of confidence.
39
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
III. — Particular Applications
But it is time to resume our journey in order to
tend towards the summit of the mountain of Love.
The same confidence which has given us assurance
of one day arriving there, must bring us there
through every obstacle. // is confidence, and confi-
dence alone ^ that must lead to Love}
Blessed Therese here opposes confidence to servile
fear, and she does not mean to say that this confi-
dence dispenses in the least with personal effort and
generosity in sacrifice ; but that it ought to be power-
ful enough to enable us to surmount all temptations
to discouragement, filial enough to give to the soul
every holy daring, firm enough never to slacken,
whatsoever may happen.
Let us briefly state on what occasions especially it
is important for a soul advancing on the * ' little
way ** to practise confidence towards her Father in
Heaven.
1. In Relation to Past Sins, howsoever great
and numerous they may have been. Once we have
done our best to obtain pardon for them, the remem-
brance of them should neither disturb the peace of
our soul, nor impede its flight towards God. Let us
hear Blessed Therese in one of the most sublime pas-
sages that confidence has made to burst forth from
her heart :
It is not, she wrote, because I have been shielded
from mortal sin that I raise my heart to God in trust
and love. I feel that even if I had on my conscience
1 VP lettre k Sr. Marie du S. Coeur.
40
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
all the crimes one could commit y I should lose nothing
of 7ny confidence. Broken-hearted with compunc-
tion I would go and throw myself into the arms of
my Saviour. I know that the Prodigal Son is dear
to Him, I have heard His words to Mary Magdalen,
to the adultressy to the Samaritan woman. No one
could frighten me, for I know what to believe con-
cerning His Mercy and His Love. I know that in
one jnoment all that multitude of sins would dis-
appear — as a drop of water cast into a flaming
furnace. ^
2. On the Occasion of Daily Faults, — We
must imitate the child who, after an act of dis-
obedience, instead of running away from his father,
goes, as soon as he has committed the fault, and
throws himself into his arms to implore forgiveness.
When we act thus towards Jesus, Blessed Therese
assures us that He thrills with joy. He says to His
Angels what the father of the prodigal son said to his
servants : Put a ring on his finger and let us rejoice,
and he instantly forgives. ^ As for the fault thus
thrown with a filial confidence into the furnace of
Love, it is immediately consumed for ever. No fur-
ther trace of it remains in the soul. There remains
only in the Heart of the good God one joy the more,
that joy of which Jesus said that it is greater for
one sinner who returns than for the ninety-nine just
who need not forgiveness.
What Blessed Therese taught so well, she herself
practised with a delightful simplicity. She loved
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xi.
^ VIP lettre k des Missionaires.
4^
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
to confide to Jesus, to relate to Him even in detail
what she called her infidelities, hoping, she said, to
acquire thus greater sway over His Heart and to
draw to herself more fully the Love of Him Who
came not to call the just, but sinners.^
Who does not see what confidence, simplicity,
and filial love such a mode of acting demands ? But
also what a deep and loving knowledge of the Heart
of God it supposes. It is only a child's heart that can
understand to such an extent the Divine tenderness.
We may indeed well repeat once more the words of
our Lord: '* I confess to Thee, O Father, because
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru-
dent, and hast revealed them to little ones."^
3. In Failures, — When, in particular, it seems
that, in spite of all our efforts and good will, we
arrive at nothing, we remain always so weak, always
so poor in virtue.
Then is the moment to redouble our confidence
and to look with more love than ever towards Jesus.
When this gentle Saviour saw that the Apostles had
fished the whole night without taking anything, He
had compassion on them and accomplished on their
behalf the great prodigy of the miraculous draught
of fishes.^ Perhaps if St Peter had taken a few little
fishes, the Divine Master would not have worked a
miracle. The observation is from Blessed Therese.
But the Apostles had taken nothing. Immediately
the Heart of Jesus is touched, He is moved in an
instant, He fills the nets with fishes.
^ Notes inedites. ^ Matt, xi 25.
3 XVI P lettre k sa sceur Celine.
42
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
Thus does He often do for souls of good will who
have laboured long at their sanctification without
any apparent success. It happens that at one stroke
He enables them to make more progress than they
had achieved in several years. He asks nothing of
them but to be humble and confident. For, says
Blessed Therese, that is just our Lord's way: He
gives as God, but He WILL have humility of heart.
4. In Darkness and Aridities, when the soul
feels herself as it were abandoned by the good God.
For the way of childhood has its trials and its
temptations, and confidence, which at first sight
seems so sweet to practise, is at times difficult. Like
every other virtue it has its heroism, and on certain
occasions its exercise is especially meritorious.
We must then remember that if God hides Himself
thus, it is only through the playfulness of His Love.
He wants to make Himself longed for and sought
after. He wants, too, to increase our merits by
obliging us to live on pure Faith.
In such a case, it is necessary to unite patience
with confidence, a patience proof against everything
with a blind confidence wholly founded on Love.
And we succeed always in winning back Jesus
when we can say with Blessed Therese : He will
weary sooner of snaking me wait than I shall of
waiting.
Being questioned as to her mode of acting in
those hours of dereliction, of darkness and of tempta-
tions against Faith, which were almost continual
towards the close of her life : / turn, she replied, to
the good God, to all the Saints, and I thank them
43
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
just the same. I think they wish to see to what
-point I shall carry my trust. . . . But not in vain
have the words of Job sunk into my heart : ' ' Though
he should kill me yet I will trust in Him."^
5. In Fears Concerning the Future, — Numerous
are the souls that trouble and torment them-
selves thinking of what shall happen and even
of what shall never happen, and often they are all
but crushed beneath the weight of sufferings fabri-
cated by their imagination. Sceur Therese, more
prudent and more wise, took refuge simply in con-
fidence in God, and nothing could disturb the calm
of her soul. For unalterable peace is one of the
sweetest fruits of confidence. That is why the
Psalmist says that "nothing shall move him who
trusts in the mercy of the Most High."^
Speaking of the possible sufferings of her malady
and the last combats of the agony, our Beata avowed
that she feared them not : The good Gody she said,
has always come to my assistance; He has helped me
and led me by the hand from my earliest years . . .
/ count on Him. My sufferings may reach their
furthest limits^ but I am sure that He will never
abandon me.^
6. Finally in Relation to Desires for Holiness
Inspired by Grace, howsoever Great they may be, —
For she believed most justly that the good God would
not inspire them if He were not willing to satisfy
them.
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
* Ps. XX 8.
3 " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
44
CONFIDENCE IN GOD
And this, whatsoever our past life may have been,
provided there be now the necessary good will. Her
confidence showed her the infinite goodness of our
Lord placing "the sinner and the virginal soul
together in His Heart.'*
In spite of present imperfection too. The fact of
seeing herself so imperfect after so many years in
religion did not in any way take from the audacious
confidence she had of becoming a great saint. For
she counted not on her own merits, but on the
power of Him who, being virtue and holiness itself,
would only have to take her in His arms in order to
raise her up even unto Himself, and clothe her with
His infinite jnerits and make her a saint. ^
From the foregoing remarks we may now judge
as to the place and the role that confidence holds in
the "little way.'* And we have no difficulty in
believing Blessed Therese when she tells us : My
way is all love and confidence, and I cannot under-
stand those souls who are afraid of so loving a
Friend."^
She did not wish to enjoy selfishly this wonderful
trust in God with which our Lord inspired her.
She ardently longed to share it with all souls called
to journey by the way of spiritual childhood. To
communicate it to them, to animate them with its
spirit, appeared to her as her special mission, the
one she would have to accomplish from the heights
of Heaven, till the end of the world. For she was
convinced that if souls weak and imperfect as hers —
1 " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. iv.
2 VI® lettre a des Missionaires.
45
THE 'LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
we quote her own words — felt what she herself felt^
not one would despair of reaching the summit of the
mount of Love.^
And that is why the story of her life ends with this
touching appeal: O Jesus! could I but tell all little
souls of Thine ineffable condescension! I feel that
if it were possible to find one more weak than mine,
Thou would St take delight in showering upon her
greater favours still, provided that she abandoned
herself with entire confidence to Thine Infinite Mercy.
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xi.
46
CHAPTER V
Love
1. The Role and the Importance of Love in the
Little Way— Its Exercise
We here touch the vital point of spiritual childhood.
What the heart is to the body in the physical life,
love is to the soul in the spiritual life. It is the heart
which vivifies all the members and all the organs of
the body; it is love which, from the supernatural
point of view, vivifies all the powers and all the facul-
ties of the soul. If charity does not animate works,
they are dead. On the other hand, as soon as it per-
meates them, it renders them living and meritorious.
In that sense, we may compare charity to the sap of
the trees, wherever the sap circulates, there is life;
wherever it ceases, there is death.
But the sap is not everywhere equally rich and
vivifying. Its virtue is known by the abundance and
the quality of the fruits, the most prolific tree of its
kind always being the one in which the sap, more
generous and better directed, reaches the fruits more
abundantly to form and to nourish them.
I. — Love, the Distinctive Mark of the Holiness of Blessed
ThSrfese, is Pre-eminently the Virtue of Children
Now what constitutes the excellence of the life
of spiritual childhood and its great supernatural
fecundity is that Love is its whole sap, and that this
47
THE
divine sap constantly tends to expand into flowers
and fruits of virtue. In this life, all is love, all pro-
ceeds from love, and all ends in love.
Not that the other virtues have not in it their own
place and their own importance. We know that
Blessed Therese de TEnfant Jesus neglected none of
them, and that she practised them all in an heroic
degree. But in her, charity stood forth in the midst
of the other virtues as a queen amongst her attendants.
Charity held the sceptre; it directed and governed
all — or, rather, it begot, bore, and nurtured all the
other virtues of which it inspired every act. Still,
not in such a way as to take away from them their
particular character or to suppress the motives proper
to each of them. But on every occasion it added to
these a motive of love, which very quickly became
the dominant motive of her conduct, and that made
of her whole life one uninterrupted act of Love.
In that way there was in the fertile garden of her
soul but one plot in which the flowers of all the virtues
germinated, sprang up, and bloomed, and that was the
choice parterre of Love. Therefore, all the flowers
that sprang up in it, of whatever variety, were the
flowers of Love.
Thus Therese was humble through conviction of
her nothingness. But she was so, still more, through
love of Jesus and to give Him pleasure.
To win Thy love a child will I remain^
And self -for getting, will delight Thy Heart.
She was generous because she understood that one
must be so in order to attain to holiness. But she
was so, above all, because when we love we reckon not.
48
LOVE
She practised renunciation doubtless because it is
a necessary condition for spiritual progress, but still
more in order to show to Jesus the delicacy of her
love : // costs us dear to give Him all He asks^ but
what a joy that it does cost! Let us refuse Him no
sacrifice. He does so want our love!
She aroused herself to confidence, of necessity,
through the feeling of her powerlessness, but also and
even much more through the natural inclination of
her childlike heart. For the child loves to trust.
Besides, parents, if rich, refuse nothing to their child.
It is my title of child, she said, that gives m,e all niy
daring.^
Confidence leads to abandonment. But Love leads
to it more perfectly still. In Blessed Therese, love
was the special form of abandonment — love that sur-
renders itself without reserve and without reckoning,
because it is happy to surrender itself, seeing therein
an especially refined manner of proving its tender-
ness. While yet very young, she had offered herself
to the Child Jesus to be His little plaything . . . a
little ball of no value, that He might throw to the
ground, toss about^ pierce, leave in a corner, or else
press to His Heart, if it so pleased Him. In a word,
she wanted to amuse the little Jesus, and to give her-
self up to all His childlike fancies.'^ As we see, the
point of view of personal interest in no way enters
into such an act of abandonment. One motive only
inspires it — to give joy to Jesus, to give Him pleasure
at all cost. That is love indeed.
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xi.
2 Ibid., chap. vi.
49 E
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
So too is it with her zeal. Assuredly, the souls
that are lost inspire Soeur Therese with great com-
passion. But what she proposes to herself especially
in labouring for their salvation, is to give to our
Lord more hearts to love Him : There is one only
thing to do here below, she would repeat — to love
Jesus^ to save souls for Him that He may be eternally
loved. ^
Finally, in her hope, what makes her heart thrill
most sweetly is not the thought of the glory of
Heaven. She leaves that glory to her brothers, the
angels and saints, as being due to them by right.
For her part, it is love that attracts her towards her
eternal home. Oh ! to love, to be loved, and to come
back to earth to make Love loved.^
The spiritual life, thus understood, is truly a life
of holy childhood, modelled on that of little children,
in whom nothing is of any worth, nothing operates but
love. Powerless for all else, the little one is capable
only of loving. But he loves, as he breathes, instinc-
tively, without effort, and his love, which cannot mani-
fest itself in important works, is at least conveyed by
his every movement, by his smile, by his caresses and
kisses, and even by his tears, when, frightened or
suffering, he presses more closely to his mother's
heart. The child is love only; but he is all love.
And is it not that which gives him so many charms in
the eyes of his father and mother, and even of
those who would pass by unheeding, but who can-
not resist the attraction of his childlike smile ?
^ VP lettre a sa soeur Celine.
2 " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
50
LOVE
And it is that, too, which in Blessed Therese has
so gently ravished the Heart of the good God that
He has become, as it were, incapatxle of resisting her
desires and her prayers. She herself was persuaded
of this, and it was certainly her intention to convince
us of it when, a few days before her death, she said :
/ want to give my little way to souls. I want to make
known to them the simple means that have so per-
fectly succeeded for me^ to tell them that there is hut
one only thing to do here below : to cast down before
Jesus the flowers of little sacrifices, to win Him by
caresses! That is how I have won Him, and that is
why I shall be so well received}
In order that we, too, may be well received by Jesus,
let us frequent the school of Blessed Therese, so as to
learn from her how we must desire, understand, and
exercise love, to arrive like her at the perfection of
Love !
II. — How We must Desire Love and Accustom Ourselves
Early to do All for Love's Sake
All the most ardent desires of Soeur Therese de
I'Enfant Jesus tended to Love. She looked upon
Love as her special vocation : In the heart of the
Church my Mother, she wrote, / will be Love! . . .
And again : What I ask for is Love! . . .
Jesus, I ask of Thee only peace! . . . peace,
and above all LOVE — love without bound or limit p-
1 have no longer any desire unless it be to love Jesus
I ^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
i 2 Ibid., cliap. xiii.
51
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
to folly ! YeSy LOVE it is that draws me. I know of one
means only by which to attain to perfection: LOVE.
Let us love^ since our heart is made for nothing else.^
So the science of sciences in her eyes was the one
that would teach her to love as much as she desired.
To acquire it, no sacrifice should appear too great :
The science of love! Sweet is the echo of that word
to the ear of my soul. I desire no other science.
Having given all my substance for it, like the spouse
in the Canticles, I think that I have given nothing. ^
All the aspirations of her ardent soul are crystal-
lized in these words: Jesus! I would so love Him!
Love Him as never yet He has been loved. ^ And her
last words were but the echo of her whole life : Oh! I
love Him! . . . My God . . . I love . . . Thee. , , ,
Thus did she realize her dream : To live on Love!
, . . To die of Love!
At the close of her short life, reflecting on the
graces with which she had been loaded, Soeur
Therese de 1' Enfant Jesus cried out: O my God!
Thy love has gone before me even from my child-
hood, it has groiun with my growth, and now it is an
abyss the depths of which I cannot fathom!
Deposited in the soul of each of us like a
mysterious germ, on the day of our Baptism, Divine
Charity in us too wants only to expand and to grow.
And how much is it not to be desired that its
development be encouraged from our earliest years !
Happy the child whom a prudent and Christian
^ Lettre a Marie Guerin.
2 " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. viii.
3 IV^ lettre a la R.M. Agnes de Jdsus.
52
LOVE
mother early teaches to develop that germ and to
turn that great treasure to account, by accustoming
him to obey, to pray, to be charitable, to make
little sacrifices for love of the good God! Happy
child of a happy mother !
But it is above all when a soul sets herself seriously
to the service of God that it is important to instil
into her the desire and the esteem of holy Love, and
that it is useful to accustom her from the outset to do
all for Love's sake. That will not prevent her from
applying herself to the other virtues, and especially
to those which are more necessary for beginners, nor
from correcting her faults. On the contrary, it will
be another and a very urgent reason for applying
herself to do so with greater care and greater fervour.
And let it not be said that, since Love is to be the
crowning of the edifice of perfection, it would be a
mistake to begin with it, as it is with it we must
end. Yes, true it is that the perfection of Love
must complete the edifice. But from that it does
not follow that Love cannot and ought not to direct
its whole construction. Let us begin with Love, let
us continue with Love, and we shall see that there
is no better artisan of perfection than Love. None
builds more quickly, none more solidly, none more
majestically, none more beautifully, because love
makes all things light and easy, and because to him
that loveth, as St Augustine remarks, nothing is
hard, or if something be hard, love rejoices for
that and labours all the more earnestly on account
of it.
Let us love then, Soeur Therese took delight in
53
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
saying, let us love^ since our heart is made for
nothing else. Let us love, and whatever degree of
the spiritual life we may have attained to, let us
not hesitate to enter on the way of Love, to value,
to desire and to ask for Love above all.
And the good God, in giving us this gift, will
give us grace to understand it. For we may mis-
understand it. But on this point also, Sceur
Therese will serve as our guide and her way is sure.
Following her we err not.
III. — In what Consists the Exercise of Love
How then in practice did Blessed Therese under-
stand Love ?
1. Always to Seek to give Pleasure to the
Good God,
It seems to us that we may sum up what she has
said of it in this formula : To love is to be always
occupied in giving pleasure to the good God^ and
for that to profit by the least opportunities, and to
put all the refinement and generosity of which we
are capable into those little gifts of love which we
offer to Him continually.
She explained it as clearly as possible in the
following words towards the end of her life : / have
ever remained little^ having no other occupation
except to gather -flowers, the flowers of love and of
sacrifice, and to offer them to the good God for His
pleasure.^
^ Souvenirs inddits.
54
LOVE
This watchful care to give pleasure to the good
God animated her constantly even in the least actions,
dominating the other supernatural motives, exclud-
ing all motive of personal interest.
And she summed up in those words, to give
pleasure to the good Gody the whole secret of holi-
ness, not only for herself, but for others. // you
wish to become a saint ^ she wrote to one of her
sisters, that will be easy for you. Have but one
end only : to give -pleasure to Jesus.
The matter is well worthy of notice, and whoever
wishes to walk in the little way of love ought to pay
great attention to it.
But the means of giving pleasure, of always giv-
mg pleasure to the good God, where are they ?
2. To Strew before Jesus the Flowers of Little
Sacrifices,
Blessed Therese again will explain in a manner as
luminous as it is pleasing; the passage is so instruc-
tive that we must cite it in full.
How shall I show my love, since love is proved by
deeds? Well, the little child will strew flowers . . .
she will embalm the Divine Throne with their
fragrance, she will sing with silvery voice the Can-
ticle of Love.
Yes, my Beloved, it is thus my life's brief day
shall be spent before Thee. No other means have
I of proving my love than to strew flowers; that is,
to let no little sacriflce escape me, not a look, not a
word; to maJze use of the very least actions and do
them for love. I wish to suffer for Love's sake, and
55
THE ''LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
for Lovers sake even to rejoice; thus shall I strew
-flowers. Not one shall 1 find without shedding its
petals for Thee . . . and then 1 will sing^ I will
always sing, even if I must gather my roses in the
very midst of thorns — and the longer and sharper
the thorns, the sweeter shall be my song.^
As we see, nothing could be simpler than this way
of conceiving the practice of holy Love. It is so
simple that anybody can grasp it ; even a child could
understand it; and that is not surprising since it is
Love put within the reach of little ones. To love
is, then, to act in all things through Love; it is to
do all, to accept all, to suffer all with a view to
giving pleasure to the good God because we love.
Once more, what could be more simple ?
Nothing either more easy or more practical. Any-
one, no matter whom, can do it with a good will and
the help of grace. And God never refuses this grace
to those who ask it. And it is always and every-
where possible, in all conditions of life and states
of the soul, as well in aridities and powerlessness as
in the midst of consolations. Listen to Blessed
Therese discovering to us the little ingenious ways of
her ever watchful love : In times of aridity, when I am
incapable of praying, of practising virtue, I seek little
opportunities, mere trifles, to give pleasure to fesus —
for instance, a smile, a pleasant word when inclined to
be silent and to show weariness. If I have no oppor-
tunities, I at least tell Him again and again that I
love Him; that is not difficult, and it keeps alive the
fire in my heart. Even though this fire of love might
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xi.
56
LOVE
seem to me extinct^ I would still throw little straws
upon the embers^ and I am certain it would rekindle}
3. To Profit by the Least Opportunities and not
to Lose One,
Ordinarily there are only very little things that the
soul can offer to the good God. Has not Blessed
Therese said, in speaking of herself : / am a very little
soul who has never been able to do any but very little
things. Now precisely because Love here disposes of
very little things only, it does not wish to lose any of
them : / do not wishy wrote Soeur Therese, that crea-
tures should possess a single atom of my love; I wish
to give all to Jesus. ... All shall be for Him^ all!
And even when I have nothing to offer Him I will
give Him that nothing. Truly, it is impossible to go
further in self-surrender. It is " all for Jesus " prac-
tised unceasingly; it is the soul persistently given up
to all the exigencies of Divine Love, watchful for
every opportunity of overcoming self, of forgetting
self in order to please God ever and always. For it
is a question of letting no little sacrifice pass. Not
only will the little child strew flowers, but not one
shall she find without shedding its petals before Jesus
through love of Him.
Not one ! Oh, how far that goes ! Only a great
heart can conceive -such a desire : only a soul deter-
mined to forget self always can realize it. Those
little sacrifices, taken separately, seem mere trifles.
But when constantly practised, what continual appli-
1 XVP lettre k sa soeur Celine.
2 VIP lettre a la R.M. Agn^s de Jesus.
57
THE "LITTLE WAY*' OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
cation, what universal renunciation, what generosity
they imply !
This is what has not been understood by some who
have grasped only the fascinating side of the life of
Blessed Therese. They believed that the "little
way," so sweet and so easy does it appear under the
pen of " little Therese," was a means of arriving at
perfection without paying the cost. But no, it is not,
and cannot be so. For there is only one way to salva-
tion — the narrow way described by Jesus. And in
that way there is but one manner of advancing in the
footsteps of our Divine Master — which is by prac-
tising what He has said : " If any man will come after
Me and be My Disciple, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross and follow Me.*'
This is why, if renunciation and sacrifi.ce had not
their place marked out on the way of childhood, we
should be compelled to say that this way is erroneous.
But the truth, on the contrary, is that abnegation there
meets us at every step. What has given rise to the
false impression is that Love, in transforming sacri-
fice, has so permeated it with sweetness and invested
it with so many attractions, that in it the cross dis-
appears beneath the flowers. But the cross is ever
there, and those flowers have cost much in the gather-
ing, for often have. they had to be sought in the very
midst of thorns and at the price of wounds very pain-
ful to sensitive nature. True it is that no one noticed
the child being wounded, because his suff^ering was
ever accompanied by the Canticle of Love, and
because the longer and sharper the thorns the sweeter
was his song. But is not this the height and the
58
LOVE
perfection of abnegation, not only to suffer willingly,
but to sing in the midst of suffering, and to sing all
the more joyously the more intense the suffering, and
to do so every day, constantly, from morning till night,
even unto death ?
4. Not to Suffer only, but to Rejoice for
Love's Sake.
However, everything in life is not unmingled suffer-
ing. We encounter also good and lawful joys, some
merely permitted, others willed by the good God.
Must we then renounce them ? Or, if we accept them,
if we concede them, shall they remain outside of Love
as if they escaped its action ? And shall there then
be hours in life when, with the absence of sorrow, love,
too, shall be wanting ?
Certainly not ! A heart truly loving could not bear
that. Love is consuming. It makes fuel of every-
thing, and all serves to intensify its flame. Besides,
it purposes to leave nothing in the soul or in life out-
side its influence. This is why, in the little way
where Love plays so importajit a part, where it is the
principal resource of the soul, everything, absolutely
everything, joys as well as sorrows, can and ought to
serve as nourishment for love.
Thus thought and acted Blessed Therese. Besides,
she knew too well the Heart of the good God, more
tender than a mother's heart, to think that our love is
not pleasing to Him except when exercised in the
midst of suffering. What a strange Father He would
be, indeed, if He were pleased only to see us suffering !
But no, it is not so. " Little Therese *' said on the
59
THE "little way** OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
contrary, that the good God finds it very hardy owing
to His great love for us, to have to leave us on earth to
complete our time of trial, and that He must rejoice
at seeing us smile. And so, with equal happiness, she
offered to Him her joys and her sorrows.
She wrote : It seems to me that if we take Jesus
captive by our sacrifices, our joys enchain Him too.
For that it suffices not to concentrate on selfish happi-
ness, but to offer to our Spouse the little joys He
scatters on our path to delight our hearts and raise
them up to Him.^
We may well believe that she attached great im-
portance to this point of her " little doctrine," for she
returns to it frequently in her writings, and particularly
in her poems, where she pours forth the choicest senti-
ments of her soul.
My griefs, my joys, my sacrifices small —
Behold my flowers.
Let us cite also these words, which seem to us to
sum up best her thought : / wish to suffer for Love's
sake, and for Love's sake even to rejoice. . . . In that
short phrase, " little Therese " depicts herself fully, and
with a flash of light shows to little souls the road to
follow in order to live on Love.
5. In this ''All for Love's Sake " to be ever Smiling
upon the Good God — Refinement in Love,
Joys or sorrows, they are in general only very little
things that a childlike soul can offer to the good God.
So, in order to give them greater value — ^for in the
^ IIP lettre a sa soeur L^onie.
60
LOVE
eyes of Love they never have enough — she desires to
put into the offering which she makes of them the
greatest possible tenderness. Such was the constant
care of " httle Therese," and nothing is so touching as
the refinement of her love for the good God.
In the first place, she did not wish that He should
ever have the least cause of trouble on her account.
And because, when we love someone very much, we
are always grieved to see him suffer, feeling herself
loved by the good God, she strove in some manner to
hide her sufferings from Him. To speak the truth,
that could only be playfulness or an invention of love
on her part, since nothing escapes the Divine gaze.
But, as she somewhere remarks, when one loves one
does and says foolish things. And her love, not
knowing how to express itself, was manifested in this
touching manner.
Therefore, in face of every sacrifice as of every
suffering, she had accustomed herself always to
smile.
In the same way she smiled upon the good God
when He tried her, and all the more sweetly the more
He seemed to try her. And in that smile she found
her purest joy. She made of it her Heaven on earth.
She sang :
My Heaven is to smile on the God I adore,
When He hideth Himself my faith to prove;
To smile — awaiting His return once more. . . .
My Heaven is Love !^
She smiled on a penance which was particularly
painful to her so that, she said, the good God, as
^ " Mon Ciel a moi."
6i
THE ''LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
though deceived by the expression of her counten-
ance, might not know that she was suffering}
She smiled on every manifestation of God's holy
will : / love Him so much, she said, that I am
always content with what He sends me ... I love
all that He does. . . . My God, Thou fillest me
with joy in all Thou dost.^
Neither would she have wished to give her
Heavenly Father occasion to refuse her the least
thing, feeling that that might cause Him even the
slightest pain. That was why she never asked any
temporal grace for herself, fearing lest her desire
might not be conformable to the Divine good
pleasure; and when obedience commanded her to
do so, she knew how to arrange in such a way as to
leave the good God perfectly free to hear her or not,
assuring Him in case of need that if He heard her
not, she would love Him all the more. Or else she
would turn to the Blessed Virgin, who, she said,
then set aright her little desires and submitted them
to the good God or not, according as she deemed
well.
Someone perhaps may be inclined to smile in face
of these refinements of Love. But rather, if he
knows even in the least degree, by experience, the
Heart of our Lord, if ever he has felt a little of the
profound happiness that it is for a loving soul to call
herself the child of God, if he has understood some-
thing of Love, he will bless with his whole soul and
thank the goodness of Him who, in His ineffable
mercy, permits to a poor creature such loving rela-
* Souvenirs inedits. 2 /^^^
62
LOVE
tions with His infinite Majesty. He will implore
for himself the grace to appreciate ever more per-
fectly a mystery which is revealed to none but to
little ones and the humble.
Meanwhile, he will take good care not to condemn
in others a different manner of acting in what con-
cerns the desire of temporal favours, on condition of
their not being an obstacle to the acquisition of
eternal goods. The request for them made to the
good God may be very pleasing to Him, and Blessed
Therese from the heights of Heaven seems to
encourage it, as the great number of favours of this
kind attributed to her intercession testifies. But
before her death, she took care to make known that
in Heaven she would act as on earth, and that
before presenting her requests, she would begin by
looking into the eyes of the good God^ to see if it be
His good pleasure.'^
And if now we wish to have the ultimate reason
of so much tenderness and generosity spent in lov-
ing the good God, these words, springing from the
heart of ' ' little Therese ' * shall tell us the whole
secret of it.
At my death, when I shall see the good God — so
good — who will load me with tender caresses for
all eternity, and I shall no longer be able to prove
to Him my love by sacrifices, this will be im-
possible for me to bear, if on earth I shall not have
done all I could to give Him pleasure .'^
1 Souvenirs inddits. 2 Notes inedites.
63
CHAPTER VI
Love (continued)
2. The Divine Lift— The Oblation to the Merciful
Love of the Good God
When a soul has practised with an unfailing
generosity and an ever-watchful tenderness what
has just been said concerning the exercise of charity,
it does indeed seem as though she should at the
same time attain to the perfection of Love.
But this divine love, which has incredible
exigencies, has still greater wants. In vain doth
the heart of a saint give itself, dedicate itself, and
spend itself without measure; it is never satisfied.
Never does it say : Enough. Already so great, it
aspires to grow greater in some manner even to
infinity. The energies of created love no longer
suffice. Too much straitened within its human
limits, it seeks to go forth and lose itself in the
shoreless and fathomless abyss of eternal Love.
But here it is no longer for the creature to act :
his action must be effaced before that of the Omni-
potent.
In the little way of childhood, this point of view
of the Divine action in the soul is very important.
Not that this doctrine is peculiar to our Beata,
being as old as the doctrine of grace. But what is
new is the manner in which she presents it to us,
the very opportune application she makes of it to
little souls, thus giving to them all, even to the
65 F
THE LITTLE WAY ' ' OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
weakest, the means of reaching the highest summit
of Divine Love.
This is what we may call the theory of the Divine
Lift, which, like every theory well understood,
requires a practical application, which is the act of
oblation as a victim of holocaust to the merciful Love
of the good God.
I.— The Divine Lift
In order to understand what follows, some pre-
liminary explanations are again necessary.
All the supernatural virtues have their primary
source in God, and it is His grace which, in Bap-
tism, puts the germs of them in our souls. Those
germs want only to be developed, and it is the end
of the Christian life to make them grow unto their
full bloom. The Christian is perfect when he has
attained to the perfection of all the virtues.
Now the virtues grow in us in two ways : either
by our own efforts aided by grace, or by a simple
effect of the liberality of God acting directly in the
soul. The first requires much time; the second, very
little. Because all things are possible to God, and
His action, unlike ours, is not dependent on time.
Thus He was able, at the instant of its creation, to
enrich the soul of His Holy Mother with a plenitude
of grace and virtues to which neither Angels nor
Saints can ever approach. Thus also, an instant
sufficed for the Holy Ghost to transform the Apostles
into new men, and to make of these timid and
ignorant men souls of light and of fire with an
indomitable courage.
66
LOVE
Clearly it was of this wonderful and all-powerful
action of grace Soeur Therese was thinking when she
wrote : // seems to me that the good God does not
need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul;
one ray from His Heart can, in an instant, make His
flower bloom for eternity.^
These words deserve to be dwelt upon, because
they prove that in the judgement of Blessed Therese,
the work of our sanctification is in the Hands of
God before being in ours, and that its success
depends more on Him than on us, since she calls it
His work of love.
Doubtless it is the work, too, of the soul. We
now know enough of the sentiments of Soeur Therese
to have no doubt about that. We know how far,
in what concerned it, she carried her generosity, her
tenderness, her spirit of renunciation and sacrifice in
the exercise of a love ever employed in forgetting
self for the sake of the good God. But although
from the age of three years, she never refused the
good God anything, it was not on her good works
or on her present dispositions she relied to attain,
according to her own expression, to the plenitude of
Love. She counted on God alone.
When, having in her heart the desire of becoming
a great saint, she saw herself for the first time at the
foot of the high mountain of holiness, she understood
that, being mere weakness and powerlessness, she
was far too little to climb the rugged stefs of per-
fection."^
^ VP lettre a sa soeur Celine.
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. ix.
67
OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
Without being discouraged, for she knew that the
good God does not inspire unrealizable desires, she
immediately set about looking for a little way
wholly new, very straight, and very short, to go to
Heaven.^
Thinking then of those lifts which we see in the
houses of the rich, she desired for herself also a
heavenly lift. But where find this mysterious lift ?
She sought in the Scriptures; she re-awakened
memories of the past, and doubtless the thought
came to her of that touching scene, which she some-
where describes, of a very little child at the bottom
of a staircase which he tries to climb, but cannot, so
small is he, reach even to the first step. Then he
calls, he cries out, he struggles, his mother hears him
and comes down; she takes him, and carries him
off. . . . The arms of the mother, behold the lift
of the little one. Well ! the arms of Jesus shall be
her lift. . . . For Jesus is more tender than a
mother. He is eternal Wisdom. And it is that
same Wisdom who has said : " Whosoever is a little
one, let him come to Me!" And again: ''As a
mother caresseth her child, so will I comfort you, I
will carry you upon My bosom, and I will cradle you
upon My knees."
And it is in that, we believe, the chief originality
of the "little way" of childhood consists, and that
it is which makes it truly a way wholly neWy very
short and very straight for attaining to -perfection:
to put ourselves into the hands of the good God,
and by force of confidence, love and abandonment,
* " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. ix.
68
LOVE
be carried by Him, by means of a perfect correspon-
dence with grace, to the highest summits of Charity.
Thus it is God will do all. As for the soul, she
shall do nothing but be docile to the interior move-
ments which her Divine bearer will impress upon
her, and her sole occupation will be to love Him.
She will exert herself to give Him joy, whilst He
carries her in His almighty Arms.
We must, however, carefully note that she could
not give Him joy if she were to slumber in an
indolent quietude. The sleep of the soul in the arms
of God does not exclude vigilance. " I sleep, but
my heart watcheth," says the Spouse in the Can-
ticles. I sleep; that is abandonment; but my heart
watcheth : that is the part of the soul's activity and
her correspondence with grace. Even at the highest
point of abandonment this part of activity continues.
It does not suffice to surrender ourselves once for all
to the Divine action. As this action is continual, we
must bring to it a continual co-operation.
This remark was necessary in order to avoid errors
of interpretation. But with this reservation, it is
correct to say that, when the soul has taken her
place in the Divine Lift, the only thing her Heavenly
Father demands of her is to surrender herself with-
out reserve to His Love so that it may wholly con-
sume her, as also without resistance to His provi-
dence so that He may guide her freely.
The soul surrenders herself to Love by her offer-
ing of herself as victim; she surrenders herself to
Providence by establishing herself in complete aban-
donment.
69
THE ** LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
II. — The Oblation of Self as a Victim of Holocaust to
the Merciful Love of the Good God
Thus it is that the oblation to the merciful Love of
the good God and the life of abandonment form the
natural outcome of the life of spiritual childhood.
Perhaps it may be useful to remark, first, that this
offering with all its consequences is not, in the * ' little
way*' a side-issue, a sort of accessory that we may,
if we choose, add to the rest, but which has, after
all, only a secondary importance. On the contrary,
it represents, in the eyes of Soeur Therese de 1' Enfant
Jesus and according to her sayings, the very basis
of the sentiments of her heart;^ it sums up all her
little doctrine; it is the most consoling dream of her
life. Those are the expressions she uses when, at
the beginning of the third and last manuscript,
which terminates the Story of her soul, she broaches
the subject of which we here treat.
1. How Blessed Th6rbse was led to Make this
Act of Oblation.
How was Soeur Therese de 1' Enfant Jesus led to
offer herself as a victim of holocaust to the merciful
Love of the good God ? It was, no doubt, because
the interior Master, Jesus, who loves to reveal Him-
self to little ones and to the humble, Himself taught
her this secret of perfection.
But it is easy to follow in the " Story of a Soul "
(Histoire d'une Ame) the progress of the interior
^ "Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xi.
70
LOVE
workings which brought her so rapidly to this
point. Like everything that God did in her, it is
the work of Love.
Two great loves, indeed, that which she had for
the good God and that which she felt confident the
good God had for her, mingling together in her
heart, enkindled the one by the other, aroused in
her from the very first an ardent desire of being
wholly transformed into Love so as to be able to
render to Jesus love for love — that is to say, to love
Him, if possible, as much as she saw herself loved
by Him.
From thence that leading desire never to refuse
Him anything; to strew before Him incessantly the
flowers of little sacrifices; to suffer for Love's sake,
to rejoice for Love's sake, to do all for Love's sake.
But, as we have already remarked, what are such
works to satisfy such a need of loving ?
In a glowing page, traced in lines of fire, and one
of the last she wrote. Blessed Therese tells us what,
in face of her powerlessness, the ambitions of her
heart were, and how, feeling in herself at once every
desire and every vocation, she would have wished,
in order to give to Jesus every possible proof of
her love, to be able to fight together with the
Crusaders and like them fall on the battlefield; to
enlighten souls like the Doctors, and with the
Apostles and Missionaries of every age to preach
continually and throughout the whole earth the holy
Name of Jesus, so as to plant the Cross on the shores
of every land; to suffer, in fine, the torments of
all the Martyrs and die all their deaths.
But those are impossible things, for obedience
holds her powerless in the depths of her C.armel.
Still, if she cannot act, preach, or shed her blood,
she can at least love. . . . And since it is love
which animates all the Saints, to such an extent that
if Love were to die away in the heart of the Churchy
apostles would no longer preach the Gospel, inartyrs
would refuse to shed their blood, she understands
that love comprises all vocations, that love is every-
thing, that it embraces all times and all places be-
cause it is eternal. She understands that, through
Love, she will realize all her desires, and that, if she
can become Love — that is to say, be wholly trans-
formed into Love — she will be and will do all she
longed to be and to do. Then it is that Love
appears to her as her special vocation, and she cries
out : My vocation, at last I have found it! My
vocation is Love! Yes, I have found my place in
the bosom of the Church, and this place, O my God,
Thou Thyself hast given it to me. In the heart of
the Church m.y Mother, I will be Love. . . . Thus
I shall be all; thus will my dream be realized.^
But the best means of being transformed into Love,
is it not to draw to oneself, in order to be consumed
by it, the Love which is in God or rather which is
God Himself? For God is charity.^
As such He is a fire and a consuming fire."' Now
when wood is exposed to fire, it burns. In the same
way, if a soul were to expose herself to the flames of
Love pent up in the Heart of God, would not she too
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xi.
* I John iv i6. ^ Deut. iv 24.
72
LOVE
be consumed ? And just as the wood becomes fire by
contact with fire, would not she become Love by con-
tact with Love ? We can have no doubt about it if
only we consider the ardour of Divine Charity. Well !
to do that is nothing else than to offer oneself as a
holocaust to the Merciful Love of the good God. In
that way the soul will be enabled to render to her
Father in Heaven love for love and to love Him as
she is loved by Him, since she will have thus found
the means of appropriating to herself the flames of
Love of which the Blessed Trinity is the eternal
source. To love the good God she will have at her
disposal the very love, and, if we may say so, the
very Heart of God.
At the same time, she will satisfy one of the most
earnest desires of this Adorable Heart, which is to
diffuse Its Love. The need of loving and of being
loved is infinite in God, and this need is, in truth,
fully satisfied in the very bosom of the Blessed
Trinity. But Love, like all good — and it is the
greatest of goods — has an extreme tendency to com-
municate itself; and it was in order to be able to
diffuse His Love that God created the world, and in
particular angels and man. Well, many of the
angels have, as we know, refused the offer He made
to them of His Divine tenderness, and now having
put themselves wholly and for ever outside the pale of
Love, they are henceforth only hatred and the object
of hatred. As for men, the majority of them scorn-
fully reject His loving advances. Thus act not only
the disciples of the world, but even a very large
number of Jesus Christ's own disciples. How rare are
73
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
they indeed who surrender themselves unreservedly
to the tenderness of His infinite Love ! Still the
good God ceases not to urge them in the most
touching manner. Continually repulsed, He returns
continually to the charge. He multiplies His kind-
nesses, His calls, His acts of forgiveness. But most
often it is all in vain. What then will become of that
infinite Love with which Jesus wishes to set the world
ablaze, but of which the world wants nothing ? Shall i
it for ever remain pent up, powerless, in the bosom •
of the Adorable Trinity ?
We know the words of our Lord to St Margaret
Mary : *' I seek a heart in which to repose My suffer-
ing Love which the world disdains."
Our Beata, too, understood the complaint of the
Divine Heart. She said to herself that if souls were
to offer themselves as victims of holocaust to His
Love, the good God, glad not to restrict the flames
of infinite tenderness pent up within Hin, would not
fail to consume them rapidly. And immediately she
offers herself to receive into her heart all the Love
that sinners disdain. Then it is that she cries out :
Jesus ^ let tne be that happy victim! Consume Thy
little holocaust in the fire of Divine Love.
It was on the Qth of June, 1895, the Feast of the
Holy Trinity, that Blessed Therese pronounced her
Act of Oblation as victim of holocaust to the merci-
ful Love of the good God. Assuredly this date
deserves to be remembered. Because it consecrates a
memorable day for the little souls called to walk in
her footsteps on her little way of Love : the day which
saw made on earth and ratified in Heaven the con-
74
LOVE
secration of the first of the little victims of merciful
Love. To the victims offered and immolated to the
Justice of God shall be added henceforth in the
Church the victims consecrated and immolated to His
infinite Love. And it shall be to the eternal glory
of Blessed Therese de T Enfant Jesus to have, by a
very special design of Divine Providence, opened up
and traced the way for them, rendering it accessible
to even the humblest and weakest souls, provided
they be generous and confident, and consent to sur-
render themselves unreservedly to the infinite Mercy
of the good God.
2. In what consists the Act of Oblation of
Ourselves to Merciful Love?
In order to form for ourselves a proper idea of it,
it is best to go back to the formula which Blessed
Therese drew up for herself, and which conveys to us
exactly her thought. The full text of it will be
found at the end of this work. We transcribe here
the last lines only, as they are the essential part of it.
O my God, Most Blessed Trinity, in order to live
in one act of perfect Love, / o/fe/ myself as a victim
of holocaust to Thy Merciful Love, imploring Thee
to consume me unceasingly, and to let the flood of
infinite tenderness pent up in Thee overflow into my
soul, that so I may become a very martyr of Thy Love,
O my God !
May this martyrdom, having first prepared me to
appear before Thee, break life's thread at last, and
may my soul take its flight, unretarded, into the
eternal embrace of Thy Merciful Love.
7S
THE "LITTLE WAY'* OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
I desire, O Well-Beloved, at every heart-beat to
renew this oblation an infinite number of times, till
the shadows decline and I can tell Thee my love
eternally face to face!
Let us first remark that it is a question of an obla-
tion of ourselves to the merciful Love of the good
God, and that in making- it we offer ourselves to this
infinite Love in order to draw it to us.
If accepted then its first effect ought to be to cause
the love of the Heart of the good God to overflow into
the soul who has offered herself. Consequently, she
remains before Him like a little vase in front of the
ocean : the act of oblation has opened the floodgate
and hollowed out the channel through which the
waters will pass unretarded. Henceforth this happy
soul shall be inundated with Love.
Inundated with mercies, too, for in God, Love, when
directed to creatures, cannot but be a merciful Love.
To draw Love to ourselves is, then, to draw to our-
selves the abundance of Divine mercies.
Blessed Therese uses yet another expression which
she was careful to underline. She speaks of tender-
ness. She implores the good God " to let the flood
of infinite tenderness pent up in Him overflow into
her soul." This is because she does not forget that
God is a Father, and that the love which descends
from the heart of a father into the heart of his child
presents itself under the most sweet form of tender-
ness. It is this infinite tenderness, then, that she calls
into her soul and to which she surrenders herself.
76
LOVE
Comparison with the Oblation to Divine Justice,
Thence we see the difference there is between an
oblation to the Justice of God and the oblation to His
merciful Love.
To offer ourselves to Justice is to call down upon
ourselves the chastisements reserved for sinners, and
thus to enable Divine Justice to satisfy itself whilst
sparing the culprits. By virtue of that oblation, the
victim-soul appears in the Church like a lightning-
conductor raised upwards towards Heaven to attract
the thunderbolt and preserve the neighbouring build-
ings from it. And, as Blessed Therese remarks, that
offering is noble and generous, since by it we ask to
suffer that others may be spared. We cannot, in
truth, serve as a lightning-conductor except by agree-
ing to serve as a target for the anger of God exasper-
ated against the crimes of the world.
Victims of Love vow themselves not to the Justice
of God, but to His infinite tenderness. They do not
offer themselves directly to suffer, but to love and to
be loved; nor as victims of expiation to repair, but
as victims of holocaust to be wholly consumed. They
are not the conductor which attracts the lightning,
but the victim exposed to the fire of Heaven in order
to receive its flames.^
We do not ^yish to set up a comparison between
those two offerings from the point of view of excellence,
but only to remark that if, by reason of possible con-
sequences, one must look twice and be very prudent
before offering oneself as a victim to Divine Justice,
1 I Mach. i.
77
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
this is not the case where there is question of the obla-
tion to Merciful Love. Because this latter has in it
nothing calculated to frighten any soul ; neither those
that are little and feeble, since its end is to draw the
flood of infinite tenderness, and since none more need
tenderness than little ones; nor those who see them-
selves still very imperfect and poor in virtue, since its
effect is to make mercy superabound where misery
had abounded; nor those who, being timid, would
fear, perhaps, the consequences of this act of
oblation.
For true it is that in it there is question of a victim
and of a victim of holocaust, which means an entire
immolation, and there is mention in it also of
martyrdom.
But let it be noted well : it is not a question of a
martyrdom of suffering, but of a martyrdom of Love ;
that is to say, of a martyrdom which is the direct
work of Love, in which, consequently, it is Love itself
which immolates and consumes the victim.
Blessed Therese makes that clearly understood by
the expressions which she uses in her Act of Oblation
when, after having implored the good God to con-
sume her without ceasing by letting the flood of
infinite tenderness pent up in Him overflow into her
soul, she immediately adds : and that so I may
become a very martyr of Thy Love, O my God !
The expression " that so " is precious to bear in
mind. It proves that in the thought of Blessed
Therese the martyrdom of Love comes to the soul
directly from the very fullness of the flood of infinite
tenderness which bursts in upon her, whose weight
78
LOVE
and intensity she could not support without endur-
ing a veritable martyrdom.
But who does not see also that such a martyrdom
must bring with it much of austere sweetness in the
midst of its inevitable rigours, and how good it must
be to live on it, and how much better still it must be
to die of it ! Such was exactly the idea that Blessed
herese formed of it for herself when she wrote :
I
To die of pure Love is a martyrdom sweety
It is that which I fain would endure.
The Act of Oblation to Merciful Love and its
Consequences from tlie Point of View of
Suffering.
Now here a question arises : Is this martyrdom of
Love exempt, then, from suffering ? Or, if there be
suffering in it, what exactly is its function ?
Let us say at once that there is no martyrdom with-
out pain, not even the martyrdom of Love. For if,
according to the testimony of the " Imitation," we
cannot live in Love without suffering, much less can
we, without suffering, live on Love and die of Love.
But here is the place to recall first the beautiful
saying of St Augustine : To him who loveth, nothing
is hard. Or, if something be hard, that becomes a
suffering loved, and this suffering is sweet in the
eyes of Love.
Then again we must remark that suffering, here,
is not the end or direct effect of the Act of Oblation.
It may become a consequence of it. But it is not to
suffering or with a view to suffering that we conse-
79
THE ''little way" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
crate ourselves; we consecrate ourselves to Love with
a view to Love.
Only it is true that Love bears in itself a germ of
suffering, and that this germ usually develops with
it. It is impossible to love God ardently without
suffering.
It is a suffering, in the first place, to see Him so
little loved and so gravely offended.
Again, not to love Him ourselves as much as we
desire. We suffer from the narrowness and the
powerlessness of a heart which can now no longer
suffice to contain the flood of tenderness that comes
to it from the Heart of God, and by which it is, as it
were, submerged.
The soul that loves Jesus suffers too, or rather
aspires to suffer and of herself tends towards suffer-
ing, because in her eyes suffering is no longer that
repellent thing, so hard to nature, from which every-
one shrinks : it is Jesus suffering who extends His
arms to her. Love invites to resemblance, and Jesus
is a Spouse of blood.
Love urges on to generosity, and there are ex-
changes of Love which can be made only on the Cross.
Love, in fine, tends with all its force to union, and
since the Cross has been the death-bed of Jesus, it
has become the sacred abode whither He, the Divine
King of Love, invites souls. His chaste spouses, to
come and consummate their union with Him in suffer-
ing and in death.
There is yet another reason why every soul that
loves Jesus ardently loves suffering, too, and joyfully
accepts it. It is because she finds in each cross
80
LOVE
that presents itself to her a most efficacious means of
"purchasing souls for Him" To love Jesus suffices
not for her love; she wants at all cost to gain over to
Him other hearts that will love Him eternally. She
wants to save sinners for Him. But sinners are saved
only by the application made to them of the infinite
merits of the Saviour. Grace alone can convert them,
and grace, the fruit of the bloody sacrifice of Calvary,
often reaches their souls by a mysterious channel
hollowed out and kept clear by the voluntary immio-
lations of pure souls continuing in the mystical Body
of Christ the sacrifice of the Cross. Those whom
Jesus Christ has purchased by His death we can save
by suffering.
For all those reasons suffering is the inseparable
companion of Love. Still, great as its necessity and
its importance may be, with victims of Love it has
no more than a secondary function. It goes only in
the second place and ever under the guidance of Love.
We must here answer an objection.
Will not the good God, to whom we surrender
ourselves by the oblation to merciful Love, at least
avail Himself of it to send crosses and trials without
measure ?
Without measure ? Certainly not ! The trials
willed by the good God are never willed without
measure, but always proportioned to the supernatural
energies which an ever-preventing grace has been
careful to develop previously in the soul. There is
always proportion between the trial and the Divine
help.
But will not God at least send exceptional suffer-
8i G
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
ings which He would never have demanded but for
this oblation to Love ? That is His own affair and
His own secret, and it depends on the designs He has
on each particular soul. Let us say merely that it is
not a necessary consequence of the Act of Oblation.
True it is that Blessed Therese wrote that to sur-
render oneself as a victim to Love is to offer oneself
to every anguish^ to every bitterness^ for Love lives
on sacrifice; and the more a soul wills to he sur-
rendered to Love, the more must she be surrendered
to suffering.
But those words, spoken in a particular case for the
consolation of a person sorely tried, were not what
Blessed Therese habitually taught to the souls whom
she wished to induce to make this Act of Oblation.
She insisted on just the contrary with them, in order
to convince them that they had naught to fear and
all to gain, assuring them that the direct result of this
donation is to draw down, not crosses, but abundant
mercies.
Without doubt God is Master, and the Cross being
one of His most precious treasures. He usually gives
it abundantly to His beloved ones. But that is so
whatsoever be the spiritual way followed. And the
great advantage here is that the cross, by becoming
the fruit of Love, becomes, like it, gentle and sweet.
In that sense we may say that what results from the
Act of Oblation is not always more suffering, but
more strength and facility to bear joyfully the measure
of suffering intended for us by the good God.
Here is what happens in practice.
Once a soul has consecrated herself as a victim to
82
LOVE
merciful Love, she ought to believe, for it is true,
that everything Providence sends her in answer to her
oblation is the work of Love — that is to say, deter-
mined, willed, chosen by Love. Consequently, the
good pleasure of God should appear to her all im-
pregnated and radiant with Love, and she must
surrender herself to it as she did to Love itself—
filially, lovingly, and also with confidence, her eyes
closed, without seeking to penetrate the secrets that
her Father in Heaven wishes to keep hidden from her.
Let her only consider it as certain that He in His
infinite wisdom and goodness will never require of
her sacrifices above her strength. Love will know
how to be forbearing in its demands and will ever
proportion them to the treasures of energy that its
own grace shall have developed in her.
But still, if God has in regard to that soul more
lofty designs of perfection, if especially He intends
to associate her efficaciously with His work of
Redemption for the conversion of sinners and the
sanctification of other souls, there is reason to believe
that He will lead her on by slow degrees to greater
sufferings. But He will know how to do so with
a sweetness at once strong and gentle. He will
make her experience the austere and profound joy of
suffering for Love's sake, and in that way He will
inspire a longing for suffering. This longing can
even become so ardent that only great and continual
sufferings will be capable of satisfying it. We see
this clearly in the case of Blessed Therese. In pro-
portion as Jesus sent her crosses, her thirst for suffer-
ing increased. But then, in the end she had gone so
83
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
far, she said, as to suffer no longer, so sweet was suffer-
ing to her. Then there was nothing like pain for
giving her joy, and suffering united to love was the
only thing that appeared to her desirable in this vale
of tears.
How then could she regret the consequences of her
donation to Love, painful though they were ? That
explains why, at the height of an agony without con-
solation, when the chalice was full to the brim and the
pains so great that the dying child acknowledged
that never had she believed it possible to suffer so
much, she said also, and repeated several times, that
she did not repent of having surrendered herself to
Love.
So shall it be for all souls whom God will lead
through Love to the Cross. Not one of them shall
ever repent of having surrendered herself to Love,
whatsoever trials may result from it.
The Principal Effects of the Act of Oblation,
The designs of Providence, however, are not the
same for all the little victims of merciful Love, and
there are some amongst them who shall neither know
those great trials nor those great desires of suffering.
They shall be' none the less true victims of holocaust,
most pleasing to God, for, according to the judgement
of Blessed Therese, it is not these desires which
delight the Heart of our Lord. What most pleases
Him in a soul is to see her love her littleneiss ; it is the
blind trust she has in His goodness. Love of suffer-
ing is merely an accidental effect of the martyrdom
of Love.
84
LOVE
Its essential and by far most desirable result is
to make the soul live in the constant exercise of
Charity, or, as Blessed Therese says : in one act of
-perfect Love,
Now when Love takes possession of a soul to this
extent, it becomes master of all her powers and
animates all her works. Consequently, every action
she does, even the most indifferent, bears the divine
imprint of Love, and its value becomes immense in
the sight of God.
That is not all. Divine Love cannot tolerate the
presence nor even the trace of sin in the soul that is
wholly surrendered to It. Doubtless the offering to
merciful Love does not render one impeccable ; it does
not prevent every fall. A little victim may still be
guilty of infidelities. But Love which penetrates her
and surrounds her renews her^ so to speaky each
moment^ and ceases not to consume her^ destroying
in her all that could displease Jesus.
According to that, we can foresee what will be the
death of a victim of merciful Love who shall have been
to the last faithful to his oblation : an enviable death,
if ever there was one ; and experience proves that such
has always been the case. As for the Judgement that
is to follow this happy death. Blessed Therese in her
trustful simplicity believed that it would be as if there
were none, so eagerly would the good God hasten to
recompense with eternal delights His own Love, which
He would see burn in this soul.
Still, it would be rash to think that it suffices to
have pronounced the formula of the Act of Oblation
in order to escape all condemnation and so to avoid
85
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
Purgatory. Blessed Therese has been careful to say
that words alone are not sufficient. The soul must
surrender herself really and entirely. For she is con-
sumed by Love ordy in so jar as she surrenders herself
to Love.
The soul must have lived, too, in accordance with
the holy exigencies of Love and in the exercise of
charity, uniting love of her neighbour to love of God.
Thus we can once more admire with what wise discre-
tion Sister Therese knew how to remain ever within
the exact bounds of truth and keep herseK free from
all exaggeration, even at the very height of her
confidence.
All the foregoing remarks enable us to judge of the
excellence of the effects of the oblation to the merci-
ful Love of the good God.
Let us say, in concluding this important subject,
that it is not a favour reserved merely to a few privi-
leged souls. A very great number are called to profit
by it. Such at least were the thought and the desires
of " little Therese," and the closing lines of the story
of her life show us that such was also on earth what
it still must be in Heaven, the object of her ardent
prayer : / entreat Thee^ Jesus y to let Thy Divine
gaze rest upon a vast number of little souls; I
entreat Thee to choose in this world a Legion of little
victims worthy of Thy Love!
Why should not each one who shall read those
lines, if he feel interiorly the call of grace inviting
him, repeat after her and with her : Grants Jesus,
that I may be that happy victim!
86
CHAPTER VII
Holy Abandonment
In order to raise herself to the highest summit of
Love, which is the consummation of the little way of
childhood, the soul has now taken her place in the
Divine lift. She has put herself into the arms of her
Heavenly Father, and there, given up completely to
His action, which is of infinite power, she expects
from Him alone her entire transformation into
Love.
This transformation is not within the power of any
creature. There is no one, as we have said, but
God alone who can bring it about; and this He can
do in an instant, for in His sight a thousand years
are but as one day. Moreover, for that, He has no
need of any thing or of any person, except a good
will, which insures correspondence to grace.
In fact, there is but one thing which can place an
obstacle to His power in a soul and nullify His
action; and that thing is a bad will, wherever it
exists. Now, the human will easily turns to evil,
and by doing so becomes bad. And that is the
reason why it is of such great import in the spiritual
life to get rid of our own will, so as to have no other
will but that of God Himself.
Blessed Therese understood this very early in life,
and from the moment that perfection appeared to her
for the first time in its reality and with all its
exigencies, she exclaimed : My Gody one thing only
87
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
do I feafy and that is to retain my own will. Take
Thou my will, for I choose all that Thou wiliest.^
To give thus to God our own will so as to have
none other but His all-holy Will; to surrender our-
selves wholly and blindly to this infinitely lovable
Will, with as much joy as those who live a natural
life experience in following- always their own caprice ;
with the same transport of love and confidence that
makes a child throw himself into the arms of His
father, to throw ourselves into the arms of the good
God, and from there to look always upon this holy
Will of God as best and sweetest and most lovable —
that is the practice of this holy abandonment, of
which it remains for us to speak, so as to make
known one of the most characteristic features of the
holiness of Blessed Therese, and one of the most
indispensable virtues of spiritual childhood.
For if abandonment be necessary for every soul
that aspires to sanctification whatever way be fol-
lowed, its role is of essential importance here, in " the
little way." It is extremely important that we should
understand it, and that we should tend by constant
practice to the perfection of this sublime virtue which
is, together with love, the virtue -par excellence of
little children.
I. The Role of Holy Abandonment in the
Little Way
We may say of holy abandonment as well as of
merciful Love that it is the product at once of all the
virtues and of all the weaknesses of the child. It is,
^ " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. i.
88
HOLY ABANDONMENT
in the "little way,'* like a cross-roads where all
ways meet.
Littleness leads to it, because the little one feels
the need of allowing himself to be carried.
Weakness runs to it, hoping to find there its surest
support. Poverty hastens to come and seek in it its
ever-assured sustenance.
Confidence, too, tends to it with all its force, be-
cause he who trusts instinctively surrenders himself,
and great confidence leads to entire abandonment of
self into the hands of the Friend or Father.
Above all, abandonment is the end and the out-
come of love. To love is to give. But the most
perfect manner of giving ourselves, is it not by sur-
rendering self? Abandonment includes the whole
gift, together with something more absolute at the
heart of it, and something more touching in form of
it, which renders it at once more complete and more
delicate.
It is exactly in that way that Blessed Therese de
r Enfant Jesus understood it. She conceived aban-
donment as acting especially through Love ; which in
her case worked in two ways, for holy abandonment
appeared to her at once the best means of expressing
her love for the good God, and the most efficacious
means of raising herself rapidly to the perfection of
Divine Love. So she abandoned herself because she
loved ; and she abandoned herself in order to love
still more.
89
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
1. How Abandonment leads to the Perfection
of Holy Love,
Jesus, the Divine Master of pure hearts, had been
pleased early to instruct His little victim ^ and He
had shown her that the only road which leads to the
Divine furnace of Love is the abandonment of the
little child who sleeps without fear in the father's
arms.
Bound for a far distant goal, the object of his
ardent desires, what in fact can a child do, who is
incapable not only of advancing, but even of dis-
covering the route ? All alone in his little barque,
lost amidst the waves, in the immensity of a sea
interspersed with reefs and fruitful in shipwrecks,
where very many of those who commenced the
voyage before him have already foundered without
having reached the luminous Beacon of Love^ the
little one whom Jesus enlightens with His Divine
light understands that so many sad shipwrecks are
due solely to the imprudence of those who wanted to
guide their barque for themselves, without knowing
their way. And looking towards his Father in
Heaven, who holds in His hand the winds and the
sun, who commands the tempests and whom the
waves obey, and seeing himself the constant object
of His most loving attention, he says to himself in
his simplicity that, in order to guide his barque, the
one thing proper for a little child is to abandon him-
self, to let his sail be filled at the mercy of the wind.^
In reality, nothing could be more wise. For what
^ Lettre ^ sa soeur Celine.
90
HOLY ABANDONMENT
else is the mercy of the wind but the breath of God
moving over the world ? The spirit breatheth where
He will, and the spirit of God is Love. In allowing
himself to be borne along by the wind, it is to Love
itself, to a Love which is infinite in wisdom and in
goodness as well as in power, that the child has
entrusted himself. Happy child !
God alone, in truth, knows the way that each soul
should follow here below. There is nothing more
admirable than the variety of the ways by which He
leads His elect. But one thing remains invariable,
that is the particular love with which He directs,
governs and protects the soul which, entrusting her-
self to Him without reserve, leaves Him completely
free to lead her on according to His wisdom. At
every instant, both outwardly by the course of
events and inwardly by the promptings of His
grace, He procures for her what is most useful and
best for her just at the moment. And so the soul
which is most completely given up to abandonment
is always the most tenderly fondled, the most power-
fully succoured, the most constantly laden with the
favours of Divine Goodness.
For this reason, there is nothing so sanctifying as
abandonment well imderstood. It is the shortest and
safest, and at the same time the pleasantest road by
which to arrive at the perfection of Love. And it is on
this road that '' little Therese " has traced her IMe
way, which, she said, is none other than ^/lat of con-
fidence and complete abandonment.
91
THE LITTLE WAY*' OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
2. How Abandonment allows the Child to
manifest his Love,
The heart of our Beata bore her instinctively towards
this complete abandonment. For she saw in it, not
only the road that leads to the perfection of love,
but also the most delicate manifestation of her child-
like love.
In her sight, before all and above all, God was the
Father par excellence, more tender than all fathers
and more maternal than a mother. She took delight
in singing to Him :
O Thou who didst create the mother's heart,
Tenderest of fathers to me Thou art ;
My sole Love, Jesus, O Word Eternal !
For me Thy Heart is more than maternal.
She saw Him always occupied with His child :
Thou dost follow and shield me the live-long day,
When I call, Thou hastest, ne'er a delay.
Even playing with His little one, as earthly fathers
do with theirs :
And when on a time Thou dost hide Thy Face,
'Tis Thyself dost show me Thy hiding-place}
What her abandonment of herself into the arms of
this tender Father was, and how she made of it her
Heaven on earth, is revealed to us in one of her
poems which helps us to penetrate to the very depths
of her beautiful childlike soul. Several of those
verses deserve to be pondered over at length so as to
extract from them their penetrating sweetness and
their delightful lessons. But we should fear to rob
* " Jesus seul."
92
HOLY ABANDONMENT
them of their freshness by trying to explain them.
In order to grasp their meaning it is better that each
one should dwell upon them in quiet beneath the gaze
of the good God Himself, by the light of His grace,
in the divine intimacy of prayer :
My Heaven is — to feel in me the likeness
Of the God of power who created me ;
My Heaven is — to stay for ever in His presence,
To call Him Father — just His child to be ;
Safe in His Arms divine, near to His sacred Face,
Resting upon His Heart, of the storm I have no fear ;
Abandonment complete, this is my only law —
Behold my Heaven here !^
Now, the child who abandons himself in the arms
of a tenderly loved father or mother does not usually
calculate the import of his action. He abandons
himself, as he loves, instinctively. This is exactly
what " little Therese " did. Or, if she reasoned about
her act of abandonment, if she sought advantages in
it, they were not so much her own as those of Jesus.
What she saw in it above all was a means of proving
her love to Him in a very perfect manner, by render-
ing herself completely dependent on Him and on His
holy will, in order the better to give Him pleasure.
The will of the good God ! Blessed Therese did
so love it ! Like Jesus Himself, she made it the whole
nourishment of her soul. She lived on it and con-
centrated on this holy will all her desires and all the
ardour of her prayer, not knowing how to desire any-
thing ardently except the perfect fulfilment of the will
of God in her soul.^
1 " Mon Ciel ^ moi."
2 " Hist, d^une Ame," chap. viii.
93
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
It was in order to accomplish it perfectly that she
made herself obedient to the least prescriptions of the
Rule and of the Superiors. And even more, she gazed
unceasingly into the eyes of the good God — the ex-
pression is her own — in order to read in them what
'pleased Him most and to accomplish it itnmediately.^
Now, there is something more perfect than to
accomplish ourselves the good pleasure of God by
doing what pleases Him : it is to leave Him free to
please Himself in us, by directing everything in our
life according to His own free will, without taking
anything else into consideration except the interests
of His glory and the greater joy of His Heart. It is
to measure our own happiness, not according to the
good fortune or profit that events bring to us, but
according to the opportunities they offer us of pro-
curing the Divine good pleasure. To know that the
good God was satisfied was sufficient happiness for
"little Therese," and filled her with joy.
And so the purest disinterestedness appears to us
to be the distinctive mark of her abandonment. This
it is that is most prominent in her words, as also in
the comparisons she employs to explain her thought.
In truth she desires but one thing : that is, to be in
the hands of the Child Jesus as a little toy, but a toy
of no value, that He can throw on the ground, toss
about, pierce, leave in a corner, or else press to His
Heart, if it so please Him. For she desires no other
joy but that of making Him smile. Or again, what
she wishes to be is a rose that sheds its petals beneath
the Feet of Jesus, one that is treated without care,
1 Souvenirs inddits.
94
HOLY ABANDONMENT
forgotten, thrown at the mercy of the wind. He may
trample it underfoot, He may crush it; that does not
matter, provided only it soothe at least His last steps
on Calvary !
It goes without saying that preferences of a per-
sonal nature would be incompatible with such a degree
of abandonment. And so Blessed Therese, in what
concerned herself, made it a rule not to be occupied
with any particular desires. Indifferent to life or
death, although her heart told her that death was the
more enviable portion, she abstained from choosing.
She left that care to her Father in Heaven. What He
chooses for me^ she said, is what -pleases me most. I
love all that He does.
It happens sometimes — too often — that we go very
far in search of perfection, whereas we have it con-
tinually within our reach. After all, holiness is
nothing else practically than the union of conformity
between man's will and God's will. The more perfect
this conformity is — that is to say, the more real it is,
and based on love — the more it unites the creature to
the Creator, so that to become a saint it would suffice
to practise perfectly holy abandonment; for in its
perfect degree this abandonment supposes the soul to
be altogether absorbed and completely transformed
into the will of God.
From this we can judge of the value of the little
way and of its efficaciousness in the sanctification of
souls, since it is nothing else but a life that is all love
united with complete abandonment.
95
THE ''LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
II. — The Prudence of Blessed Therfese in the Exercise
of Holy Abandonment
Blessed Therese knew how to exercise always dis-
cretion and prudence in her " little way." For more
dangers than one are encountered therein, and it
is necessary to be watchful against excesses which
are always possible.
It is thus that she showed herself circumspect in
face of certain high aspirations, familiar to generous
souls, which at first sight seem to come from the Spirit
of God, but which are often nothing more than idle
fancies inspired by self-love. We know of her great
desires of immolation and her thirst for suffering.
Nevertheless, feeling herself ever little and weak, even
in the arms of the good God, she took care never to
desire or to ask for greater sufferings than those which
her Father in Heaven destined for her : / would be
afraid of being presumptuous^ she avowed, and that
those sufferings^ having become then my own suffer-
ings, I would be obliged to bear them alone; never
have I been able to do anything alone. And her
abandonment never deviated from that characteristic
of perfect simplicity which so well becomes the little
child.
With the same prudence she closed her eyes to the
future, and she encouraged little souls to do likewise.
We zvho run in the way of Love must never torment
ourselves about anything.^ And through prudence
as well as through Love, her abandonment made
* " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
96
HOLY ABANDONMENT
itself voluntarily blind, so as to leave more com-
pletely to her Heavenly Father the care of watching
and of providing for her every need.
Yet there was not in that any of the timidity or
apathy of a soul that gives herself up to carelessness
through weakness and lack of energy. On the con-
trary, her confidence enabled her to find in abandon-
ment an admirable courage. A prey to sickness, she
wrote : / have no fear of the last combats^ nor of the
sufferings of my malady, how great soever they may
he. The good God has aided me and led me by the
hand from my tenderest infancy; I rely on Him. I
am sure that He will continue to help me to the last.
I may have to suffer extremely^ but I shall never have
too much, I am sure. ^
And her heroic patience, which never failed her
even to her last breath, proved that she spoke truth.
On the other hand, her abandonment had nothing
of rashness in it. The same prudence which guarded
her against discouragement preserved her likewise
from presumption. This prudent virgin who ex-
pected everything from the good God knew that we
must not tempt His Providence, and that, while rely-
ing on His grace, we must also turn it to use and
second it. Being charged, notwithstanding her
youth, with the instruction of the novices, she re-
doubled her abandonment. She placed herself like
a little child in the arms of her Father, and there,
with her eyes fixed on Him, she waited till He Him-
self should fill her hand that she might give, as she
said, food to her children. And without even turning
* " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
97 H
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
her head aside, she distributed to them what came
to her from God alone. But this union in no way
lessened her vigilance, or her clearness of judgement,
nor did it make her retrench in any way the duties
which Christian prudence imposes. She watched,
observed, and studied souls, knowing well that they
must not all be taken in the same way. And so from
her elevated post nothing escaped her gaze. She
watched very exactly over all the duties of her office.
We have cited this example in order to show that
abandonment, rightly understood, far from stifling
the other virtues, rather develops them. And just as
it does not annihilate prudence, so it does not lessen
generosity. Listen to this song of a soul entirely sur-
rendered to holy abandonment :
Thee alone, Jesus — Thee, and none beside,
'Tis to Thine Arms that I run to hide;
As a little child would I fain love Thee,
As a warrior, strive for victory.
Of a child the delicate, tender love
My caresses, Lord, to Thee shall prove ;
And in the field of my apostolate
My zeal in the fight shall ne'er abate.^
Blessed Therese de TEnfant J6sus is there whole
and entire, humble and trustful, weak and ardent,
entirely surrendered to Abandonment and to
Love. . . . And in this union of love and valour, of
calm abandonment and of courageous action, consists
the whole ideal of the little souls destined to become
the victims of merciful Love. Who would not aspire
to its realization, so beautiful is it ?
* "Jesus seul."
98
CHAPTER VIII
Zeal
When a fire breaks out in the interior of a house, it
consumes rapidly everything within its reach, and,
as its heat increases with all it consumes, the space
where it is enclosed becomes too confined to contain
it. Then through the windows, the glass of which
crashes, through the roof which falls in, through the
breaches made in the collapsing walls, the flames are
seen bursting forth and darting towards the neigh-
bouring houses in order to devour them in their turn.
And so it happens at times that a mere spark produces
an immense conflagration.
In the same way, when Divine Love is enkindled in a
heart, it is at first only a spark of fire under the embers.
Little by little it grows hotter, it flames, it becomes a
glowing hearth, so much so that after some time, it
also being too much confined, seeks to extend itself;
it bursts forth. At first there are only feeble sparks,
and then veritable flames. These sparks and these
flames of Love constitute zeal, because zeal is to love
what flame is to fire : the proof of its ardour.
We can affirm then that Blessed Therese must have
been devoured by zeal since she was consumed by
love. Such in truth was the case. An eminently
apostolic soul and a true daughter of St. Teresa, she
showed herself to have an extreme ardour for the
salvation and sanctification of souls, giving in this as
in all else an admirable example to the little victims
99
OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
of Merciful Love, whom it is her mission to draw
after her. Let these then not believe that they have
arrived at the end of the ' ' little way ' ' so long
as zeal is not enkindled, like a flame, in their
hearts.
For it is impossible to love the good God sin-
cerely, much less to love Him ardently^ without desir-
ing that He be known, loved and glorified by all
men; without suffering at seeing His Name outraged,
His Love despised, and the sufferings of Jesus Christ
rendered fruitless for so many sinners.
In the same way we cannot truly love our neigh-
bour without feeling a lively sorrow at the sight of
the unfortunate ones who daily fall into Hell, because
their misery makes us shudder when we realize it.
And those on earth who habitually live in danger
of imminent damnation are legion.
But whether it is a question of God or of our
neighbour, sentiments though generous do not
suffice : love is proved by works, and the special
work of love here is zeal.
We insist on this point. The li^lle way is a way
wholly of love, which tends only to love, and
derives all its value from love. It is then of the
utmost importance that the souls that enter upon it
should remove from themselves everything that
might be an obstacle to Divine Charity. Now this
latter has no greater enemy than egotism, which, shut
up within itself, thinks but of self, of its own pleasure
and of its own interests. There is a false piety, the
piety consisting merely in appearances, of those
whom the Apostle speaks of, who seek their own
100
ZEAL
advantage and not the interests of Jesus Christ/ a
piety based on egotism.
When this egotism takes root in a soul, it wounds
love and corrupts it even as the worm taints the
fruit into which it has entered. Disastrous for every
soul, egotism would be mortal for the virtue of a
little victim of Merciful Love. She must preserve
herself carefully from it, or, if she is seized with it,
let her get rid of it at all cost. There is no more
efficacious means for so doing than the exercise of
zeal which makes us go out of ourselves and forget
ourselves for the service of souls.
Thus zeal shows itself to be at once the safeguard
and the fruit of holy love.
It is truly providential that the first of the
little victims of Love, she who was to trace out the
way for the others and serve as their model, was such
a zealous soul. Let us see then from what source she
drew her zeal and in what way she exercised it.
From this double point of view, her way is wholly
characteristic, and little souls will derive immense
profit by imitating her.
I.— The Source of Zeal
We may say that the zeal of Blessed Th^rese was
born with her and grew with her growth.
Divine love had, she said, gone before her from her
infancy, and that is why, while yet a child, she
loved souls, desired their salvation, and, in order
to procure it, had recourse to the most ingenious
1 Cf. Phil, ii 21.
lOI
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
practices which her naive piety suggested to her.
From the age of three years, her little daily acts of
renunciation and her sacrifices could be counted by
hundreds.
But it was when approaching her thirteenth year
that she received the great grace of her apostolate.
She has related it at length in the story of her life.
It was Sunday, at the end of Mass. As she was
closing her book, a picture, representing our Lord on
the Cross, slips partly out of the pages, just far
enough to let her see one of the Divine Hands,
pierced and bleeding.
It is only a minute detail. A hundred times
before, perhaps, she has looked upon that same
Hand without being impressed by it. But on that
day a strong penetrating grace descends upon her
and moves her soul to its very depths.
My hearty she writes, was turn with grief at the
sight of the Precious Blood falling to the ground
with no one eager to gather it as it fell; and I resolved
to remain in spirit continually at the foot of the
Cross that I rnight receive the Divine Dew of salva-
tion and four it forth on souls. From that day the
cry of the dying Saviour ^ " I thirst/'* re-echoed con-
tinually in my heart, firing it with an ardent zeal
till then unknown to me. I longed to give to my
Beloved to drink; 1 too felt myself consumed with
the thirst for souls, and at all cost I would wrest
sinners from the eternal flames.'^
As we see, it is from the love of Jesus Crucified that
the zeal of our Beata springs. What inclines her to
* " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. v.
1 02
ZEAL
sinners is less the thought of their misery than the
sight of His sorrow.
Doubtless her compassionate heart, animated by
an ardent charity, could not remain insensible to the
misery of those souls that are damned. But what
she sees above all in sinners is that they are wretched
ingrates who offend the good God, who do not love
Him, and who, if they should be damned, will hate
Him for all eternity, and so render fruitless the Blood
and the sufferings of the Saviour of the world. What
afflicts her most is the thought that from their hearts
there no longer rises and perhaps never will rise an act
of love for the God who has so loved them. Then her
whole raison (T etre and her whole life appear to her
in a new light, which she conveys in those expressive
words : There is only one thing to do here below : to
love Jesus and to save souls for Him that He may
be loved.
Let us consider well these words : To love Jesus
and to save souls FOR HIM that He may be loved.
Here is a zeal which not only comes from love, but
tends to and returns wholly to Love : Let us save
souls FOR HIM that so He may be loved!
We made a similar remark already in regard to
the other virtues of Blessed Therese. But here it is
particularly striking.
We know now the source of her zeal. From this
it is easy to deduce its most salient characteristics.
Born of the love of Jesus, her zeal is pure as her
love. No smoke is mingled with the bright glow of
its flame.
From such a burning hearth, immense waves
103
THE *' LITTLE WAY*' OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
of heat must indeed come forth. For the love of
Jesus is noble, says the author of the '' Imitation,"
it spurs us on to do great things : it is earnest and
does not want to lose any opportunity of manifesting
itself by works.
But let us hear '' little Theresa " : We have but the
single day of this life to save souls and thus to give
Jesus proofs of our love. . . . Let us be jealous of
the smallest opportunities of giving Him joy : let us
refuse Him nothing. He does so want our love!
In order to turn the one day of this present life to
the best advantage, to save a greater number of souls
and to gain over to Jesus a greater number of hearts,
she would wish to multiply her labours and her suffer-
ings, to hold simultaneously the most sacred offices,
to have every possible vocation. She would wish to
be a priest so as to give God to souls, a doctor so as
to enlighten them, a missionary so as to travel all
over the world and announce the Gospel everywhere,
and all that not for a few years only but till the end
of time.
For this is another characteristic of her zeal : the
immensity, or say rather the universality, of her
desires. One might say that, like St. Paul, she
bears with her the solicitude of all the churches.
She bears still more : for she holds enclosed within
her heart all the desires of the Heart of Jesus, not
only those which concern the present time, but also
those which regard the far distant future. She
counts on doing good till the Last Day.
A chimerical dream ! So it would appear. An
unrealizable ambition. For, judging according to
104
ZEAL
the usual course of things, how many souls will she
be able to reach from the seclusion of her Carmel,
during the very short time of her existence ? But
her zeal replies that all is possible to love, and that a
great confidence triumphs over all things. That is
why she hopes, and is certain that her immense
desires will be accomplished.
We know that prophecy of hers which events have
so magnificently realized even to this day. It was
a few days before her happy death, when she said :
/ feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission
to make others love the good God as I love Him . . .
to give to souls my little way. I WILL SPEND MY
HEAVEN IN DOING GOOD UPON EARTH. This is not
impossible, since from the very heart of the Beatific
Vision the angels keep watch over us. No, there
can be no rest for me till the end of the world! But
when the Angel shall have said: " Time is no more!''
then shall I rest — shall be able to rejoice, because the
number of the elect will be complete.
This incredible zeal which enlarges her horizon
and extends her hopes even to infinity is the natural
outcome of the way of spiritual childhood. For
none but a "little one*' would have the daring to
carry his confidence to such extremes. It is only the
child of a God who can give himself up to desires
* * greater than the universe ' * and hope that these
desires will be not only fulfilled but far surpassed.
To conceive such immense desires is the function of
confidence, but it is for love alone to realize them.
Blessed Ther^se will teach it to us.
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THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
II. — The Exercise of Zeal
There are, besides the preaching of the word of
God reserved to priests, two principal means of
apostolate which are at the disposal of every soul of
good will : prayer and sacrifice. Blessed Ther^se
did not fail to employ both the one and the other.
She knew the great efficacy of prayer. She saw in
prayer the mysterious and irresistible lever which has
served the saints of every age to uplift the world.
In her confident simplicity she even believed that
often the Creator of the Universe awaits only the
prayer of one poor little soul to save a multitude of
others^ redeemed like her at the price of His Blood.
And so her prayer, though usually dry, was con-
tinual. We know one of her modes of prayer on
behalf of sinners. It consisted, as we have seen, in
remaining at the foot of the Cross, receiving the
Blood as it flows from the wounds of the Crucified,
to offer it to God in expiation, and to pour it on
souls as a purifying dew.
She had recourse to sacrifice as much as to prayer.
Sacrifice is indeed the very basis of the Redemption,
for without the shedding of blood there is no remis-
sion of sin.^ The saints of every age understood
this, and there has been no apostolic man, or con-
verter of souls, who was not a man of sacrifice and
penance.
Nor was Blessed Therese ignorant of this. She
knew that since the King of Heaven raised up the
standard of the Cross ^ it is under its shadow that all
* Heb. ix 22.
io6
ZEAL
must fight and win the victory. For together with
the love of souls Jesus had put into her heart the love
of sacrifice. This good Master, having made her
understand that it was through the Cross He would
give her souls, the more crosses she encountered, the
stronger became her attraction to suffering. We
know how far she went in her passionate love of sacri-
fice, and that she was an immolated soul.
Yet that is not the distinctive characteristic of her
apostolate. Blessed Therese was an apostle above
all by love. Other saints have been, like her, souls of
prayer, and some have gone further than she in the
practice of penance. She wished to triumph above
all by love. Love was her chosen weapon. She
could not have said it more clearly : " With the sword
of love I will drive the stranger from the kingdom.
I will have Jesus proclaimed King in all hearts." A
strange sword, truly ! Weapon of peace, if ever
there was one, but an irresistible weapon which draws
all its force from its sweetness, which conquers Jesus
by caresses, and, making Him smile, disarms Him.
When I wrestle with Thee, the sinner to save,
My weapon of choice — strewing flowers at Thy Feet,
I disarm Thee, Lord, like warrior brave.
With flowerets sweet !
One word especially is significant. Love triumphs
over Jesus by disarming Him — that is to say, by
making the arms with which His justice would strike
sinners fall from His hands.
There is another means of saving them, which con-
sists in offering oneself to receive the blows which
they have but too well merited ; and it is thus, as we
107
THE
have seen, that those generous souls act who offer
themselves as victims to Divine Justice. But little
victims have the resource which is theirs from their
title of child. They win Jesus by love, our Beat a
said; by caresses. They begin by making Him
smile, and they fascinate Him by strewing flowers
before Him, and once they have made themselves
sovereigns of His Heart they have no difficulty in
wresting His arms from Him. Love gives to them in
His eyes the empire of a queen over the heart of her
king. And so it comes to pass that sweetness accom-
plishes what strength could not have done, and love
triumphs where expiation alone would have been
powerless.
This is how the " little queen " obtains now from the
King of kings pardon for the greatest culprits. How
else can we explain the innumerable graces of con-
version and of salvation attributed to the power of
her intercession ? Neither her penances, considered
in themselves, nor even her prayers, seem capable of
giving a satisfactory explanation. It is love alone that
suffices to explain everything. " Little Therese " has
possessed herself of the Heart of the good God by
force of love, and now God can refuse her nothing :
/ have never given anything but love to Him, she was
able to say ; with love He will repay me. And again :
/ have won Him by caresses y and that is why I shall
be so well received.
This would be the place in which to recall how the
humble child conquered the Heart of her Heavenly
Father at the price of a love which was tender, re-
fined, earnest, generous, ardent, and filial — above all,
io8
ZEAL
filial. For everything in her life, as also in her
spirituality, is held together and connected in won-
derful harmony. And one cannot understand what
is said here of her zeal in particular, without having
first realized the depth and the tenderness of her love
of God, or rather her life, which was all love, which
draws love from everything and transforms every-
thing into love — pains and sacrifices and even joys.
Nor must we lose sight of these words which throw
such a shining light on her life here below and on her
mission in Heaven : In the heart of the Church, my
Mother, I will be love. . . . My brothers toil in my
place, and /, the little child, I keep quite close to the
royal throne; I love for those who fight.
The same place and the same weapons are offered
to all little victims of the Merciful Love of God, and
great triumphs await them also if, by uniting prayer
to sacrifice, they cease not to immolate themselves,
and above all to love; if, like Blessed Therese, and
side by side with her, they also become Love in the
heart of the Church their Mother and spend their
lives doing the works of Love.
109
CHAPTER IX
Simplicity
Simplicity gives to childhood one of its most
fascinating characteristics. Simplicity it is that
impresses on the slightest movements of the little
one, on its every word, on all its ways, that stamp of
uprightness and candour which renders it so lovable
in our eyes. To take away its simplicity from the
child would be to take from the flower its perfume.
So entrancing a virtue could not be wanting to the
little child of the good God. And for this reason
the soul that wishes to advance on the way of spiritual
childhood ought to value simplicity very highly. She
must banish from her mind, from her heart, and from
her conduct, all that savours of duplicity, and even
all that appears in the slightest degree complex, and
practise to the very letter on every occasion the coun-
sel of Jesus to His Apostles : " Be ye simple as doves."
Blessed Therese was a perfect model of this beau-
tiful and lovable simplicity, and were we to say
nothing of it, the sketch of her soul we give here, as
well as the idea we ought to form for ourselves about
her little way, would be altogether incomplete.
Besides, this virtue is not one of those of which the
acts are made only from time to time as opportunities
occur; its practice is a thing of every day and, in
some manner, of every moment. Or, to speak more
correctly, it consists less in distinct acts than in a
certain manner of being which is impressed on one's
whole life, not only in external conduct, but even in
III
THE LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
the thoughts and the most interior sentiments of
the soul. And that is what gives it such great
importance.
In the spirituality of Blessed Th^rese, or like her,
to speak more simply, as in her '* little doctrine,**
everything is ordinary, everything happens in the
very simplest way : the soul is borne towards God as
the river is borne towards the sea ; the river following
the incline flows downwards, the soul following its
inclination tends upwards. And as the river flows
on, shut in between its banks, without seeking a way
for itself outside, so in spiritual childhood life passes
away in God by following the course of events, and
borne along by the very surroundings of life, because
in everything that presents itself to be done or to be
suffered, a little soul always finds a means of raising
itself to God by love and by the practice of every
virtue.
Such was the life of "little Th^rese." Outwardly,
no remarkable events; within, nothing extraordinary
either: no visions, no raptures, no ecstasies; but the
common way from every point of view, from the
beginning to the end ; the ordinary life in the obscurity
of Faith.
This it is which makes of her, for a very large
number of souls, a model so encouraging and so easy
of imitation. For as she sang herself : The number
of little ones on earth is very greats and in my little
way^ she says again, there are only quite ordinary
things; all that I do^ little souls must be able to do
also.^
* " Hist, d'line Ame," chap. xii.
112
SIMPLICITY
Let us follow her, then, once more in the luminous
traces that she has left on her way. Nothing will be
more capable of arousing- our confidence and our
fervour than to consider, at the close of this study,
how simple was the way which raised her in so short
a time to a high degree of perfection.
I. — How Simplicity Goes Straight to God
It is the property of simplicity to go straight to its
end.
In the spiritual life the end is God. To go straight
to God is to have Him as the direct end of all our
actions, and not to harass ourselves with any other
care. For that, we must forget creatures and not
seek to please them; we must forget self, and in no
way seek our own pleasure or personal advantage.
For howsoever little a person is occupied with self
or with creatures, he turns aside, he deviates from the
straight line, he ceases to tend directly to God; he
leaves simplicity behind.
Our Beata, as we have seen, had but one constant
preoccupation : to please the good God. That is how
she brought unity into her life, and it was an excellent
way of being simple, for here unity and simplicity are
all one.
But God is love. Hence, to go to Him she con-
sidered that there is no better means than love. And
to the simplicity of the end she joined the sim-
plicity of the means. For in her eyes all were reduced
to love. Still, that did not prevent her from having
recourse to the practice of the other virtues. But she
113 I
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
SO enveloped and permeated them with love that she
transformed them all into love, and she could say :
/ know of one means only by which to arrive at per-
fection : Love. Let us love^ since our heart is made
for nothing else.
Thus, simplicity in the end : God alone ; simplicity
in the means : love ; and this love again freed from
everything that might complicate it and reduced to
its simplest form : the love of a child for his father.
Such is, as we remember, the foundation of the
spirituality of Blessed Therese.
Now simplicity of love brings with it simplicity of
faith. For the child who loves never doubts the word
of his father. If the virtue of Faith, considered in its
human element, is founded on the intellect and the
will, the heart can also have a part in it, and, when it
intervenes, it simplifies and strengthens to a remark-
able degree the acquiescence of these two powers.
*'As for us," says St John, "we believe in love."
But this word which solves every difficulty in the
presence of the obscurities of Faith, what else is it
but a cry of loving confidence to the father or to the
friend that speaks to us? Such was the faith of
Blessed Therese, not only in the bright days when her
soul gently expanded beneath the warm rays of the
Divine Sun, but also in the most gloomy days of her
great temptations against Faith. She never ceased
to believe, because she never ceased to love Him in
whom faith told her to believe.
The same love which rendered her faith so simple,
made her confidence also very simple. She trusted
as she believed, because she loved, and in the full
114
SIMPLICITY
measure of her love. And from thence, too, came the
wonderful simplicity of her abandonment.
Thence, in fine, the relations so affectionate and
simple which in all ways she maintained with her
Father in Heaven, notably in her prayer. Her
manner of prayer had nothing in it complicated or
strained. / have not the courage ^ she said herself,
to force myself to seek beautiful prayers in hooks; not
knowing which to choose^ I act as children do who
cannot read: I say quite simply to the good God
what I want to tell Him^ and he always under-
stands me.^
Nothing could be more touching, because nothing
more beautiful in its simplicity, than the following
scene which belongs to nearly the last hours of her
life. It was the night but one before her death. Her
infirmarian, on entering the infirmary, found her
with her hands joined and her eyes raised towards
Heaven.
" But what are you doing ?" she asked ; " you should
try to sleep."
*' I cannot, dear Sister; I suffer too much ! Then
I pray . . ."
" And what do you say to Jesus ?"
"/ say nothing: I LOVE HlM."^
Simple with God, she is simple even in the very dis-
tractions that assail her. Others would be troubled
about them; she is content to accept all that for the
love of the good God^ even the most extravagant
thoughts that come into her mind,
* " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. x.
2 Ihid.y chap, xii,
115
THE 'LITTLE WAY** OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
Further still, she is simple in her manner of recom-
mending to God those dear to her. If she had to
enumerate the needs of each one in particular, she
said, the days would be too short for doing so, and
she would greatly fear forgetting something im-
portant. Besides, complicated methods are not for
simple souls, and as she is one of these, Jesus Himself
inspired her with a very simple means. It consists
in saying to Him with the Spouse in the Canticles :
" Draw me : we will run after Thee to the odour of
Thy ointments,** for a soul could not run alone with-
out drawing after her the souls whom she loves. This
is a natural consequence of her attraction towards
God.
In this way nothing can distract a soul whose one
occupation is to love ; nothing can turn it away from
its end. On the contrary, everything that might
seem capable of turning it aside, such as the most
importunate distractions and preoccupations of every
kind, becomes new material for her love. Just as we
see rivers, swollen by the waters which their tributaries
bring, drawing along with themselves these waters
without being delayed by them; and all that comes
to them from left and right, from far and near, instead
of slackening their course only accelerates it. And
when at last all these waters reach the sea, they have
no longer any name but one, that of the river which
bears them along.
In the same way the beauty of a life is evolved from
its simplicity. When it is vowed wholly to love, this
latter draws everything along in its train, and nothing
resists it. Thoughts, works, pains, joys, preoccupa-
ii6
SIMPLICITY
tions, everything is subject to the attraction of love.
And just as the streams lose their names when mingled
with the river, so at the contact of love everything
in life becomes love and is transformed into love. It
is the triumph of charity and the blessed fruit of
simplicity.
II. — Where and How Simplicity is to be Learned
Blessed Therese has just told us : complicated
methods are not for simple souls. So, in order to
learn the great science of perfection, the most simple
doctrine is that which suits them best, which they
appreciate the more and from which they derive the
most profit. That is the reason why Blessed Therese
so loved the Gospels.
When 1 read, she says, certain treatises where ^er-
fection is set forth as encompassed by a thousand
obstacles, my poor little head grows weary very
quickly. I close the learned book which puzzles my
brains and dries up my heart, and in its stead I
open the Holy Scriptures. Then all appears clear,
luminous. One single word discloses to my soul
infinite horizons; perfection seems easy; I see that it
is sufficient to recognize our nothingness and to leave
oneself like a child in the arms of the good God. Let
great souls and sublime intellects enjoy the beautiful
books^ which I cannot understand, still less put in
practice. I rejoice in being little, since children only
will be admitted to the Heavenly banquet. It is well
that the Kingdom of Heaven contains many man-
sions, for if there were none other than those of which
117
THE ''LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
the description and the way seem incomprehensible to
mey I should never be able to enter therein.^
We would be certainly wrong in concluding from
those lines that Blessed Therese professed the least
contempt for treatises on spirituality in which the
Saints or other authors have accumulated the treasures
of their experience or the fruit of their knowledge.
We know from the story of her life that, while still
quite young, she knew by heart nearly all the " Imita-
tion of Christ," that during the first years of her
religious life she learned in the school of St. John of
the Cross, that she meditated with profit on the
** Foundations of the Spiritual Life," by P. Surin, etc.
But in proportion as she advanced in years, her soul
was becoming more and more simplified. Very soon
after her entrance into Carmel, an aged nun of her
convent had told her that it would be so. "Your
soul is extremely simple," she said to her, " but when
perfect you will become still more simple; the nearer
we approach to God the simpler we become." Now
according as she became more simple, instead of going
to draw water from the channels which bring to the
earth the living waters of truth, she felt herself instinc-
tively urged to go direct to the fountain-head. The
fountain-head is the inspired word, the word of God
Himself; it is the Holy Scripture, and especially the
Gospels, a book twice divine, being inspired by God
and setting forth the life of the Man-God.
Of all the Sacred Books, that of the Gospels was
the one she consulted most willingly and with the
greatest love. It was for her more and better than a
^ VI* lettre a des missionaires.
ii8
SIMPLICITY
VADE-MECUM ; night and day she bore it on her heart ;
she nourished her soul with it ; we might say she lived
on it.
She loved to contemplate in it the examples of the
Divine Spouse to whom she has vowed all her affec-
tion; and by merely looking at Him, and listening
to Him, she learned the science of sanctity. Oh, how
luminous are His footprints — diffusing a divine sweet-
ness. . . . I have hut to glance at the holy Gospels
and immediately I inhale the fragrance of the life of
fesus, and I know which side to take^
The picture of the Holy Family at Nazareth in
particular appealed very sweetly to her soul. Every-
thing there was so simple.
In the life of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph
there was nothing remarkable, nothing extraordinary.
What an encouragement it was, therefore, for a little
soul called to journey along the ordinary path to
contemplate the august Mother of God in a life from
many points of view like to her own. Our Beata
must have often dwelt upon this thought. When she
speaks of it we feel gratitude and joy overflowing
from her heart.
In these modest surroundings of the life at
Nazareth, where the days follow one another bring-
ing with them the monotonous round of the same
labours and the same duties, amidst ordinary occu-
pations, St Joseph became a great Saint, the Blessed
Virgin merited to be crowned Queen of Heaven, and
Jesus found the means of saving the world. Can
we, then, become holy without departing from the
^ *' Hist, d'une Ame," chap. x.
119
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
ordinary way of life, and that while doing only the
most commonplace things ? Yes ; and it is the genius
of simplicity to make us discover in the very position
which we hold the providential means of sanctifica-
tion which the good God offers to each one of us.
This means Blessed Therese for her part found in
her humble life as a, Carmelite. She understood that
she was meant to seek the secret of perfection in her
religious life itself, and, in order to weave her web
of sanctity, she did not go searching at a distance,
but seized the thread ready to her hand, drawing it
from all her actions and from the smallest events.
On this web so slight her love embroidered virtue-
flowers of great richness and exquisite beauty. It is
in thus making use of quite small things that she has
become a great saint. In vain should we seek in her
life anything extraordinary; we should not discover
there anything of this nature unless it be the extra-
ordinary perfection with which she accomplished the
most ordinary deeds.
In that she has given proof of an admirably prac-
tical judgement; she has shown us a very sure way of
sanctity, for there is no fear of illusion for one who
bases his virtue on the perfect fulfilment of the duties
of his state. Perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that
never did anyone have a truer conception of sanctity,
because no one, we believe, ever conceived it with
greater simplicity.
1 20
SIMPLICITY
III. — Simplicity in the Practice of Virtue
Still, one cannot become a real saint except on con-
dition of practising all the virtues in an heroic degree.
Blessed Therese, as we know by the official judge-
ment of Holy Church, raised herself to this heroic
degree of virtue in an ordinary manner. What we
wish to draw attention to here is that even on her
heroism she has left the mark of her simplicity.
To consider, for example, the practice of penance
only. There are two ways therein of showing heroism.
One consists in having recourse to extraordinary
means, in multiplying fasts, in depriving oneself of
sleep, in mortifying the body with harsh hair-cloth,
and in lacerating it with long disciplines even to
blood. Many of the great saints have with wonder-
ful courage practised this severe mortification, and,
because they were guided therein by the Spirit of
God, received through that channel abundant graces
of sanctification for themselves and of conversion for
sinners.
The other heroic form of penance is to profit by all
the opportunities which present themselves daily, of
renouncing and of overcoming self. It is, as it were,
to make mortification spring from the circumstances
and all the events which Providence places in our
path.
Obviously it is this second method which is more
suited to children. For one would hardly imagine
a very small child given up to austerities which far
surpass his age and strength. Rather, one pictures
him as awaiting from his Father, who provides for all
121
THE 'LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
his needs, those of the soul as well as those of the
body, occasions for practising virtue, not excepting
that of penance. And, in fact, however little
attentive he may be, he will see these opportunities
occurring at almost every instant.
This is exactly the way in which Blessed Therese
understood the matter. In order, therefore, to satisfy
her need for mortification, which, nevertheless, was
very great, she rarely had recourse to the extra-
ordinary penances of her choice. On one occasion,
however, she was ill through having worn too long a
little iron cross, of which the points had sunk into
her flesh, and she said that this would never have
resulted from so slight a cause had not the good God
wished to make her understand that the macerations
of the great saints were not for her^ nor for the little
souls who wished to walk along the same -path of
childhood.^
In truth, in order to understand these words we
must place them in the environment in which she
uttered them. The Carmelite rule is severe, and we
know that Blessed Therese observed it in all its
severity for as long a time as her strength permitted.
She practised then, even corporally, severe austerities
which surely amounted to a number sufficient without
adding more.
But a person in the world, living in abundance and
lacking nothing, would be wrong to justify himself
from the words of the Beata in living a slack and
sensual life. A small amount of corporal penance is
necessary for anyone who aspires to sanctity, as much
1 " Hist, d'une Ame," chap. xii.
122
SIMPLICITY
in the world as in the cloister. What Soeur Therese
de I'Enfant Jesus wished to make us understand here
is, first of all, it seems to us, that for little souls
interior mortification is of more value than corporal
penance; and, secondly, that the best mortification
does not consist in imitating the great macerations of
certain saints, but in supplying their place with con-
tinuous mortification in availing ourselves instead of
all opportunities which offer themselves for self-denial
or of renouncing our own ease and our tastes.
This is what she applied herself constantly to do,
and she was extremely ingenious in making up to
herself in small things for that which she could not
accomplish in great things.
For instance, not being able to imitate the almost
complete fast of a St Rose of Lima, she took care to
mortify her taste continually, not in seeking always
the worst, but in eating with the same satisfaction
what she liked and what she did not like at all, and
even what disagreed with her. She would deprive
herself of drinking during the whole of a meal rather
than cause the slightest pain to her neighbour at
table in making her notice an involuntary neglect;
at other times she would drink as slowly as possible
a most bitter draught, or again, one day when she
had been dispensed from fasting she was surprised in
the act of seasoning with absinthe some food too
much to her liking.
Prevented from using at discretion some instru-
ments of penance, by the use of which certain saints
endeavoured to subdue their bodies, during whole
winters she left to the cold the task of cruelly morti-
123
OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
fying her own, and her suffering was so severe that
more than once she thought she would die. But
because Providence allowed matters to be thus she
never complained, nor did she ever ask for any
alleviation.
In her eyes the most useful discipline is not that
which we inflict on ourselves but that which comes
from a certain want of consideration or attention.
Thus when in the laundry one of the sisters, without
noticing what she did, splashed her with dirty
water, she saw in it only an excellent opportunity for
mortification, gratuitously offered by Divine Provi-
dence; and however disagreeable it might be she pur-
posely came again and stood in the same place
where, she said, she was presented with such precious
treasures at so little cost.
She did not ask to do more than to observe the
rule, but in all that this prescribed she obliged her-
self always to persevere to the utmost of her strength
rather than complain. This was one of her underlying
principles, and she had another which was — to take
to herself whatever was the most troublesome and
least pleasant, looking upon that as being naturally
her due. With these two principles there was no
need to seek outside the common life opportunities of
penance. That was the wide-open door to heroism ;
and how many times she crossed the threshold ! But
this was heroism hidden, and without show, that
which her heart preferred above all others just be-
cause it was without show and because it bore the
mark — so precious in her eyes — of simplicity.
From this beautiful simplicity which gave the
124
SIMPLICITY
charm to her conversation, our Beata in no degree
departed even to the end. And one day, asked by
what name she was to be addressed when in Heaven,
humbly she replied, You will call me — little
Therese.^
They said to her again: **You will look upon us
from the heights of Heaven, will you not?'* With
the same simplicity she replied, Islo, I will come
down !
She has "come down,'* in fact, not once, but, if
we are to believe responsible witnesses, hundreds and
hundreds of times, always simple and sweet, and
always doing good. She has **come down," not
always letting herself be seen, but to bring to the
earth the good gifts of the good God. It has been
easy to recognize her, for she has still her own par-
ticular way of doing good, just as she had formerly
her own particular way of sanctification ; even in
her way of scattering wide her shower of roses we
recognize the lovable simplicity of her childlike soul.
Nor is this surprising. For in the same way that
grace perfects nature without destroying it, so does
glory confirm souls for ever in the state and in the
kind of perfection in which she finds them at the
moment when she crowns them. Thus it is that in
Heaven * * little Therese * * has not ceased to be
** little Therese," and has wished this fact known.
The Church, in officially consecrating her triumph,
has but consecrated the particular form of her virtue.
And so, Blessed as now she is, she could not forget
* " Conseils et Souvenirs."
125
THE "LITTLE WAY" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
the little soul that once she was. That is why
beneath the halo o£ Glory which now illumines her
brow, Blessed Therese de 1' Enfant Jesus remains and
will remain for all time that which she has always
been, that without which she would no longer be
herself — Little Therese.
She has promised to "come down." May it
please her then to incline with goodness towards
whomsoever shall read these pages and to draw him
after her in her little way, a truly royal way, where
souls run when once love has enlarged their hearts;
and may she thus from day to day increase the
number of little souls ! May she enkindle them
with Divine Charity ! May she transform them into
Love ! And finally, according to her promise, may
she lead before the throne of the Blessed Trinity a
legion of little victims truly worthy of the merciful
love of the good God !
126
I
APPENDIX
Act of Oblation of Myself as a Victim of
Holocaust to Merciful Love
This writing was found after the death of the Beata in her
book of the Holy Gospels, which day and night she carried next to
her heart.
O my God, Most Blessed Trinity, I desire to love
Thee and to make Thee loved, to labour for the
glory of Holy Church by saving souls still on earth
and by delivering those who suffer in Purgatory. I
desire to accomplish Thy Will perfectly, and to
attain to the degree of glory which Thou hast pre-
pared for me in Thy Kingdom; in one word, I
desire to be a saint, but I know that I am power-
less, and I implore Thee, O my God, to be Thyself
my sanctity.
Since Thou hast so loved me as to give me Thine
only Son to be my Saviour and my Spouse, the
infinite treasures of His merits are mine, to Thee I
offer them with joy, beseeching Thee to see me only
as in the Face of Jesus and in His Heart burning
with Love.
Again, I offer Thee all the merits of the saints — in
Heaven and on earth — their acts of love and those of
the holy angels; and finally I offer Thee, O Blessed
Trinity, the love and the merits of the Holy Virgin,
my most dear Mother; it is to her I entrust my
oblation, begging her to present it to Thee.
Her Divine Son, my well-beloved Spouse, during
127
THE '•little way" OF SPIRITUAL CHILDHOOD
his life on earth told us : If you ask the Father any-
thing in My Name He will give it to you.^
I am certain then that Thou wilt hearken to my
desires. . . . My God, I know it, the more Thou
wiliest to give the more dost Thou make us desire.
Immense are the desires that I feel within my heart,
and it is with confidence that I call upon Thee to
come and take possession of my soul. I cannot re-
ceive Thee in Holy Communion as often as I would ;
but, Lord, art Thou not Almighty? . . . Remain
in me as in the Tabernacle — never leave Thy little
Victim.
I long to console Thee for the ingratitude of the
wicked, and I pray Thee take from me the liberty to
displease Thee. If through frailty I fall sometimes,
may Thy divine glance purify my soul immediately,
consuming every imperfection — like to fire which
transforms all things into itself.
I thank Thee, O my God, for all the graces Thou
hast bestowed on me, and particularly for making
me pass through the crucible of suffering. It is with
joy that I shall behold Thee on the Last Day bear-
ing Thy sceptre — the Cross ; since Thou hast deigned
to give me for my portion this most precious Cross,
I have hope of resembling Thee in Heaven, and see-
ing the sacred stigmata of Thy Passion shine in my
glorified body.
After exile on earth I hope to enjoy the possession
of Thee in our eternal Fatherland, but I have no wish
to amass merits for Heaven, I will work for Thy Love
alone, my sole aim being to give Thee pleasure, to
console Thy Sacred Heart, and to save souls who
will love Thee for ever.
^ John xvi 23.
128
APPENDIX
At the close of life's day, I shall appear before
Thee with empty hands, for I ask not. Lord, that
Thou wouldst count my works. . . . All our justice
is tarnished in Thy sight. It is therefore my desire
to be clothed with Thine own Justice and to receive
from Thy Love the eternal possession of Thyself. I
crave no other Throne, nor other Crown but Thee,
my Beloved ! . . .
In Thy sight time is nothing, one day is as a
thousand years.^
Thou canst in an instant prepare me to appear
before Thee.
* That I may live in one Act of perfect Love I
OFFER MYSELF AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO THY
MERCIFUL LOVE, imploring Thee to consume me with-
out ceasing, and to let the flood of infinite tender-
ness pent up in Thee overflow into my soul, that so
1 may become a very martyr of Thy Love, O my
God!
May this martyrdom, having first prepared me to
appear before Thee, break Life's thread at last, and
may my soul take its flight, unretarded, into the
eternal embrace of Thy Merciful Love.
I desire, O well-Beloved, at every heart-beat to
renew this Oblation an infinite number of times, till
the shadows fade away, and I can tell Thee my love
eternally face to face !
(Signed) Marie Fran^oise Th^r^se de
l' Enfant Jfisus et de la Sainte Face,
Rel. Carm. Ind.
Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the 9th of June,
in the year of grace 1895.
^ Ps. Ixxxix 4.
129
300 days Indulgence, each time recited by the
Faithful with contrite heart and with devotion.
A Plenary Indulgence, once a month, on the ordinary
conditions, for those who shall have recited it
each day during the month.
Given at Rome (S. Poenit.).
July 31, 1923.
N.B. — These Indulgences are attached in perpeiuum
to the above Act of Oblation from the * to
the end.
The Holy See, by recently enriching with indul-
gences the Act of Oblation to God's Merciful Love,
as composed by Blessed Therese, manifestly encour-
ages its recitation. Nothing, it seems, was more
capable of overthrowing a presumption only too
widely spread, according to which this oblation
would be fitting for but a few elect souls already
perfect. The indulgences in question are offered to
the faithful of the whole world. So, all the faithful
are invited to offer themselves as victims of holocaust
to the merciful Love of the good God. By that are
the desires of Blessed Therese admirably seconded,
and approved her prayer entreating Jesus to choose
for Himself in this world a legion of little victims
worthy of His Love.
The Portraits of Blessed Th^r^se de TEnfant
J§sus
Certain criticisms have arisen against the true character of
the portraits which are found in the edition of VHistoire d'une
Ante. According to the opinion of many, those drawings might
be mere constructions of the imagination, offering us ideahstic
compositions. As such ideas tended to spread, it appeared to
Us opportune to make a diligent research as to the origins and
the value of the portraits called into question.
The inquiry made by Us at the Carmel of Lisieux has re-
vealed that there are, in the private archives of that Com-
munity, from twelve to fifteen photographic negatives repre-
senting various groups of the nuns, amongst whom Soeur
Ther^se de 1' Enfant Jesus figures. Those are photographs
taken on the private feast-days in the Convent, dating especi-
ally from the years 1895, 1896, 1897 — that is to say, the last
years of the Servant of God.
From the comparison of those negatives, which control one
another, the following conclusions clearly result :
1. The Servant of God used sometimes to lose, at the moment
of the pose, the natural composure of her features, and so,
any one of the negatives examined, while being, like the others,
a photograph without any retouching, certainly does not give
the expected resemblance.
2. The portrait en busts, the frontispiece of the large edition
of UHistoire d'une A me, presents a synthesis, which is very
conscientious and studied with the greatest care, of the best
elements of expression furnished by the above-mentioned
photographs.^
That is why We do not hesitate to recognize in that picture
a true and authentic portrait of the Servant of God when about
twenty-three years old. We can appreciate the value of the
other portraits by comparing them to that standard.
►I^ THOMAS,
Lisieux Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux.
September 8, 1915.
Note. — Nevertheless, according to what contemporaries
say, the other portraits issued by the Carmel of Lisieux repro-
duce faithfully, too, the features of Blessed Ther^se. Such, in
particular, is that which represents her covering her crucifix
with roses to symbolize her spiritual life and her God-given
mission. Blessed Ther^se seems, moreover, to recognize
herself in it and to give it her approval, since — as the volumes
of the Shower of Roses testify — it is under that form she
appears most often to her privileged ones.
^ The same portrait appears as frontispiece of this work.
^ A. X U {j i
BX 4700 .T5 M3613 1923
SMC
Martin, Gabriel,
1873-1949.
The "Little Way" of
spiritual childhood :
AZZ-4961 (sk)
